


The Promise of Summer

by Omi_Ohmy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Apologies, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bubble Bath, Coming In Pants, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Exams, Fade to Black, Fire, Friendship, Frottage, Gay Draco Malfoy, Grief/Mourning, H/D Erised 2019, Healing, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Prefects' Bathroom, Injury, Kissing, Lack of Appetite Due to Stress, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil, POV Harry Potter, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Patronus, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Post-War Trauma, Rebuilding Hogwarts, Room of Requirement, Scars, Self-Discovery, Sentient Hogwarts, Sexual Identity, Slow Burn, Studying, Toast, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Transfiguration (Harry Potter), Transformation, facial injury, fire damage, marbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-18 04:01:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 66,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omi_Ohmy/pseuds/Omi_Ohmy
Summary: How was Harry supposed to know that coming back for eighth year would be soconfusing? Everything is the same, and yet not the same. And nowhere is this more obvious than with Draco Malfoy. Harry finds himself once more watching and following Malfoy, trying to work him out. When they are drawn together to heal the castle, Harry doesn’t just find Malfoy - he also finds himself.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 169
Kudos: 1432
Collections: H/D Erised 2019





	1. Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isinuyasha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isinuyasha/gifts).



> Dear Isinuyasha, I loved the idea of the boys in eighth year, magic and magical spaces, and of them learning and growing together. I have my fingers crossed that the slow burn is worth it, I didn’t seem able to write it any other way but with lots of slow lingering looks and pining (oops). I hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Many thanks to I and I for the alpha reads and typo checks, and to E for the beta read.

“Welcome back, everyone,” Professor McGonagall said. Her eyes swept around the hall, pausing at each of the four House tables. “It is good to see you here, and an especial welcome to our new students.”

The little girl with pigtails who had squeaked when Sorted into Gryffindor, then fallen into a wide-eyed silence at finding herself sitting opposite Harry, squeaked again. She put her hand over her mouth and looked as though she was trying to shrink into the bench.

“I would like to take a moment to remember the brave students and staff, friends and family, who fought for our school, both during the last school year, and in the final battle here itself.” She raised her goblet, and the hall filled with shuffling as benches scraped and everyone got to their feet. “To the fighters and the fallen.”

“To the fighters and the fallen.”

Harry said the words along with everyone else, but he swallowed his pumpkin juice with difficulty. His throat was tight as he sat back down.

“As an institute of education we at Hogwarts are, and always have been, dedicated to a spirit of curiosity, openness, and learning. In recent years this has been tested, but we have survived. Many of you have experienced hardships and losses, in your families and here at school.” She paused for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice had an extra crackle in it. “This year I would like to add another injunction to you all: be kind. Be kind to yourself and to others, to friends and former foes alike.”

Her eyes flickered between the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables for a moment.

“You may have noticed we are a little crowded today, due to our older returning students.”

Whispers ran through the hall as though McGonagall’s words gave students permission to stare more openly at Harry and his friends. He kept his own eyes fixed on his plate, feeling his skin heat at the back of his neck. He wasn’t certain if it was from embarrassment, or a lingering anger at being the focus of attention again. Maybe both.

“These students have chosen to return to school to complete their education. In addition, many volunteered to restore this castle, working throughout the summer alongside the professors and other former students.” Her voice turned more stern. “Be warned though, that not all areas of the castle are fully restored. The west side of the school sustained particularly heavy spell damage. Students are to avoid the western part of the Dungeons, as well as the third and seventh floors until further notice.”

“Returning to the matter of our extra students, after consultation with the staff and Board of Governors, it has been decided that this extraordinary intake - who have reached the age of maturity - deserve a slightly different arrangement. As a symbol of the commitment to peace, and to healing, we are bringing them together for the year.”

She took out her wand, and traced it through the air. The four tables around the hall, along with the benches full of students, slid aside to form more of a diamond shape in the hall. Harry grabbed at the table, unbalanced for a moment. The little girl opposite giggled. McGonagall moved her wand again, and brown smoke snaked out, then twisted across the hall and solidified to form a new wooden table running down its centre. Benches sprang up alongside it. The worn polish, chips and marks matched the other four tables; although smaller than the others, it looked as though it too had been there for centuries.

Hermione whistled softly under her breath. “That’s one impressive piece of Conjuring,” she said.

McGonagall tucked her wand away again, and eyed the whispering hall until they fell silent again. “After the first years are led to their new Houses, the students here for their eighth year will follow Madam Pince to their new accommodation. At all meals they will intermingle at their table.” She nodded at the new table. “I expect civility from all students, and, as I said, kindness. I hope I do not have to speak to any of you about this any further.”

A hubbub of chatter rose up as McGonagall sat down.

Harry sat back, uncertain of what this meant. He wasn’t going back to Gryffindor tower? He, Ron, and Neville had kipped in their old beds when they were working on the castle over the summer, and he’d assumed that they’d be going back there again after the welcome feast. They’d got used to the empty beds in the room, he thought… An elbow knocking into his side broke his thoughts. Ron didn’t notice and kept talking, his face glowing under the candle light as he joined in with the speculation about where they might end up sleeping. They were rather crammed in at the table, and Harry supposed the new little first years still eating their ice cream would end up in the room in the tower.

***

Of course it made sense, Harry knew that. Less than half of the students from his year had returned when McGonagall made the offer. No Seamus, no Dean. Most of the Slytherins had kept away, too, although he was aware of the bright shine of Draco Malfoy’s hair among the group of fifteen or so students following Madam Pince along a narrow corridor. Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about this; he hadn’t worked out what Draco Malfoy was now that the Death Eaters were defeated.

“You thought we were going to sleep in the library, didn’t you?” Ron was saying behind Harry.

He heard a happy sigh at the idea of living in the library, presumably from Hermione, and a half-muttered, “if only.” 

The corridor looked familiar, but it wasn’t until they were halfway down it that Harry remembered why. It had been darker, and it had seemed larger back in his first year, but he had walked this way for three nights. As they stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, Harry felt his heart speed up as it had all those years back. He saw himself again in his mind’s eye: small, pyjama-clad, thrilling with the excitement of trying out his new invisibility cloak, his heart racing with the fear of capture, and then… then the glimpse of his parents.

Even though he knew the Mirror of Erised had been moved, he was still half-expecting to see it when Madam Pince opened the door. He could picture his parents and their soft smile, even now.

Harry’s memory of a moonlit room, empty apart from the mirror and a few desks, faded as he walked into gentle candlelight, and the warmth of a roaring fire in the room’s large stone fireplace. No Mirror of Erised, and Harry’s heart tumbled in disappointment. With a rueful smile, he let curiosity about the changes to the room take the place of the wistful longing for his parents that he still felt, even now.

A vaulted ceiling rose from columns in the centre of the room, with two leaded and triple-arched windows at the far end. Around the fire were three sofas, and a couple of armchairs, and on the right of the room were study tables and chairs. As Harry turned to see the whole of the room, he saw that apart from the door they’d walked through, the entirety of the wall behind him was filled with shelves of books. There were doors set into the walls, one between the bookcases and the fire place and one on the opposite wall, that mirrored the shape of the windows. Rugs covered much of the stone floor, and tapestries of trees and flowers filled the remaining pale stone walls. 

Unlike the Gryffindor common room, this room was not dominated by the colour red. Nor blue, green or yellow. The sofas were all different, one upholstered and buttoned in brown leather, one chintzy and floral, another a faded and squishy-looking grey. The rugs, worn in places, looked as though they each could have come from the other common rooms. And perhaps they had given that they contained all of the house colours. Although the rugs and sofas looked like they’d seen better days, the chairs, tables, and shelves all glowed with the warmth of lovingly crafted and polished wood. Above the faint smell of woodsmoke, there was the strong scent of freshly cut wood. They were all, Harry realised, newly-made.

“Welcome to the new eighth-year common room,” Madam Pince said. “We’ve tried to make it comfortable.”

After all these years Harry hadn’t thought he’d see anything he didn’t recognise at Hogwarts, and it was strange to come back and find an unfamiliar and new space rather than the home that the Gryffindor tower had represented for so long. And yet there was plenty about the room that he recognised, too, odd pieces of furniture, and one of the rugs. And in the background ran his memory of sitting, staring into the Mirror of Erised all those years ago. The room was new to him, and yet also part of his memories, all at the same time.

“The girls’ rooms are through the door to the left, the boys’ through the door to the right. You will all be sharing one dormitory. I don’t want to hear any fussing about who snores, or who leaves their socks lying around.”

“Are you our… Head of House… of year?” Lisa, one of the Ravenclaws, asked, looking a little star-struck.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Madam Pince answered. “My rooms are at the other end of this corridor; we passed them on the way here. If you have any non-sock or snoring queries, you can come to me. Please bear in mind that I am busy with my work in the library. And that I do not like too much noise and bother, so no loud disturbances in here, please.” She cleared her throat, and her face softened in a way Harry was not accustomed to seeing. “I’m not all shushes though. I understand that you have all experienced a lot in the past year. If any of you would like to come for a chat in the evening, I have hot cocoa and a fire to sit beside.”

“Who made all this?” 

Hannah had spoken, her kind face open as she looked around the room.

The soft look deepened on Madam Pince’s face. “We did,” she said simply. “We the staff and teachers, and the house-elves. For you. For you all.” 

“Thank you,” Hermione said, and then all the other students joined her in thanking Madam Pince. Harry’s heart felt warm; Hogwarts had always felt like home, but he’d never had someone _make_ him a place to live like this before.

“It’s not bad,” Ernie said, once a slightly misty-eyed Madam Pince had left. He opened a cupboard door, which held bottles of ink, rolls of parchment, and a stack of quills in all colours and sizes. He whistled in appreciation, and closed the door. “Not bad at all.”

“There’s a kettle here,” Neville said, from the other side of the room. His voice was muffled as he stuck his head into a tall cupboard near the fireplace. “And a sink, and a cold shelf. There’s the stupidest collection of mugs and a couple of teapots, and tea and coffee. Ooh, and there’s cocoa and biscuits.”

Harry looked around the room. He could see how this could be comfortable, how he and his friends could sit in front of the fire, drinking tea and chatting, or spread their homework out at the study tables.

Except he wasn’t here with only his friends, was he?

The group had divided along loose House lines, Harry noticed. Ron and Neville, along with Ernie, were the ones roaming around and exploring the room, while Hermione and the Ravenclaws - Anthony, Lisa, and Padma - were looking at the books on the bookshelves by the door. Parvati, Hannah and Susan were sitting on one of the sofas, talking fast and turning to look around them all at once.

And over by the study tables, standing stiffly and with eyes down, were Zabini, Bulstrode, Greengrass, and Malfoy. The Slytherins. Harry was loathe to use their given names: they had always been so unfriendly, and their House’s association with the Death Eaters made him want to keep a distance. 

Malfoy looked as cold and broken as he had done at his trial, and Harry felt a shiver of discomfort travel down his back at the memory of the crowded hall, the way the room had smelt of loss and anger. Bulstrode stood solidly to one side of the group, while Zabini and Greengrass, one dark and one fair, looked like they’d stepped from the pages of a magazine: immaculately turned out, beautiful, but not quite real. None of them met his eyes as he looked at them, and he realised he wasn’t the only one glancing over at the group. He turned away; he had better things to do than stare at Slytherins.

“Let’s look at the bedrooms!” Ernie said. “Come on.” It was as though his words gave permission to everyone in the room to move. Harry, who was nearest the door on the left, turned the knob and held it open.

The door opened to reveal a short, dark, passage, with three doors off it. The first held a rectangular room with seven beds, heads against the wall, two either side of the fireplace and five along the opposite wall. The beds were four posters, like in Gryffindor, but the curtains were heavily embroidered, covered with a pattern of twisting branches and leaves in a dull palette of muted colours. The rest of the room was furnished in the same manner as the common room, in a mishmash of old and new, with painted bedside tables and cabinets, rugs and tapestries in a range of colours. The other room, when they had a quick look, contained shower cubicles and wash basins with another triple-arched window at its end. The final door at the end of the passage led to some toilets.

After so many years in the Gryffindor tower, Harry wondered what it would be like to share with people from all four houses. Their trunks were at the end of their beds, with Ernie’s first, then Neville’s, followed by Ron’s rather battered trunk with ‘RBW’ painted over ‘WHW’ on its side. Looking around Harry saw, with some relief, that his trunk came next, but stopped short when he had walked over to his bed and saw who would be sleeping between him and the window: ‘DLM’. Malfoy.

Ernie and Ron, who had both leapt onto Ernie’s bed and seemed to be in the middle of some kind of wrestling match, fell silent as Malfoy walked down the centre of the room to his own bed. Zabini stopped at the bed opposite, and Anthony put his things down on the remaining bed. It seemed to Harry that Anthony, as the only Ravenclaw in the group, was happy to be apart from both the Slytherins, and the more boisterous Gryffindors and Hufflepuff.

Once everyone had found their beds - and in the case of Ernie and Ron leaped onto several of the beds in the room - Harry and Ron went back into the common room. The others followed them; Ernie and Anthony struck up a conversation with Lisa and Padma who were sitting by the fire.

“Do you think the rules are different here?” Ron asked, eyeing up the door to the girls’ rooms.

“Only one way to find out,” Harry said. “I think we’re all on one floor, so no slide here.”

Ron squared up his shoulders and took a deep breath. “Right.” He stood there for a moment, muttered, “Keep your intentions pure,” then headed towards the door.

“He doesn’t stand a chance,” Anthony said.

“Poor bugger,” Ernie said. “Of all of us he’s the least likely to get in.”

“Did they have that rule in Gryffindor, too?” Lisa asked. “What about you Hannah?”

Hannah nodded. “Hufflepuffs, too.”

“Maybe they’re ready to treat us as adults?” Lisa said.

Ron had reached the door by then. He grabbed the handle, took another deep breath, then turned the handle.

Everyone else waited, and stared.

The door swung open, and Ron - still holding onto the handle - turned to give the room a triumphant grin. As he attempted to step through the threshold however, he was thrown back.

“Tough luck, mate!” Ernie called out.

“In Ravenclaw, the girls could come into the boys’ rooms,” Anthony said. For some reason the tips of his ears had turned pink.

“Let me try,” Lisa said. She sprang up, surprisingly quickly, and went to the door to the boys’ rooms. Just as with Ron, she was thrown back as soon as she tried to cross the threshold.

“That answers that, then,” Harry said.

Ron, still by the open door to the girls’ room, shouted into the dark hallway beyond. “Hermione, you there?”

A moment later Hermione came out. “No need to shout. Our room’s just by the door.” She took in the way he was standing by the open door, and his slightly wild hair. “Did you try to get in?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. Then she stood on her toes and whispered something into his ear. His whole face turned crimson-red.

“So much for pure intentions,” Ernie said.

Harry turned away, feeling it better to leave Ron and Hermione to their little chat. Hermione was also rather pink now, and he remembered enough of his time with Ginny to guess what they were talking about.

Although Ernie and the rest were laughing and chatting, not everyone joined in with the excitement. The four Slytherins stood back, eyes down. They all looked lost, and weren’t speaking to each other - let alone anyone else. Harry wondered why they had come, whether their parents had forced them to, or whether they had been the ones to insist.

He shrugged off the worry. It didn’t matter why they were there. He was back at Hogwarts, with a warm bed, good food, and a chance to rest. For once he could relax.

***

Harry woke, and stretched into the warmth and comfort of the kind of bed he had only ever known at Hogwarts. He knew, without opening his eyes, that he was back in the castle. He could feel the solidity of stone walls and floors deep in his bones. Harry smiled: this bed was larger than his last, and for the first time in several years he could stretch his feet without getting to the end of the mattress. With a yawn he opened his eyes to the dim half-light of closed bed curtains, and stared without focus for a while. How strange the thought that the pale grey curtains would open onto a different room, that the bed to his left contained Draco Malfoy, not Ron. A light snoring from his right reassured Harry that Ron was still there though; he had got so used to the sound he always felt more at home when he could hear it.

The gnawing knot of tension he had tried to ignore the night before still sat inside him. He couldn’t see how this could work, all of them thrown together like this, all the old anger, new grief, and blame between them all.

When Harry pulled back the curtains and thrust on his glasses to see Malfoy staring into space, too. He sighed, and pretended he hadn’t seen. Perhaps that was how they’d get on: simply ignore the obvious.

Malfoy rose in one sharp movement, pulled on a black dressing gown, and stalked out of the room. He seemed so pale against the black, his face so closed, that Harry was reminded of Malfoy in sixth year.

Looking around the room, at all the curtains pulled tight, Harry suddenly felt alone. He shivered, and hugged his blankets closer. He needed the day to get started, to hear everyone’s voices, and get caught up in classes and timetables, not dwell on the past.

***

After the first week of school, Harry’s initial enthusiasm had worn off a little. It turned out that after a year of not having any lessons, he had grown used to having a certain degree of freedom in his life - even on the run, he and Hermione (and Ron, when he had been there) had been free to choose when they would stop, when they would move.

At the back of the Transfigurations class, Harry drew a cloud on his parchment, and let the quill droop in his hand as his thoughts went to flying. He imagined soaring high above the inky waters of the lake, through the chill of the night, until his skin glowed with the wind and the cold and the sheer exhilaration of it all.

He doodled a broom beside the cloud. There were only a few minutes left of this lesson, and then it would be lunch time. Harry shifted in his seat, but couldn’t get comfortable; he was beginning to feel trapped in the classroom. He had wanted to embrace his return to school, but had forgotten what it was like to sit and listen to a teacher for an hour. In an effort to keep from yawning, he drew one of Mrs Figgs’ cats flying on the broomstick. Perhaps he’d go for a walk after lunch, by himself. Away from classes and pretending he was still fifteen and everything was still as it had been. He drew an impressive cape streaming out behind the cat, then added a fine moustache to its face.

“Those of you wishing for extra credits, an extra challenge, or perhaps to enter into the Aurors,” McGonagall was saying, and feeling all eyes turn on him Harry covered his doodle with his hand, “might consider spending more time on personal Transfiguration. After Christmas I will be offering extra classes on personal Transfiguration, as part of which there will be the opportunity to begin the training to become a registered Animagus.”

A loud whispering broke out in class. Beside him, Hermione put up her hand. He turned to see her face pulled into a slight frown, as though confused by something.

“Yes, Miss Granger.”

“Is this usually offered as part of the NEWTs? I don’t remember seeing it anywhere on the syllabus, although I’ve only gone back ten years and—”

“You are correct. After consultation with the governors and the Ministry, we felt there were sufficient of you working at a more advanced level that we could offer this option. I should warn you that not everyone will be accepted, and that it is possible that none of you will achieve anything near an Animagus transformation by the time you leave the school. It is important that before you even think of attending my extra classes, you work hard this term to have a firm grasp of the basics.”

A shiver of memory ran through Harry, and he saw in his mind’s eye Sirius shifting and blurring from dog to man, and back again. He had no idea what else McGonagall had been saying in the lesson, but now she had his attention. He raised his hand.

“How do we sign up for these classes?”

McGonagall paused for a moment before answering, her eyes fixed on him. “If you are interested, I will be setting some extra work for independent study; for further information you may talk to me after class, come see me in my office, or write me a note.” He heard her offer of a shortbread biscuit in her office, but he was far too distracted to stay with the thought.

If Harry could learn to transform, as Sirius and his own father had done… Excitement bubbled through his veins.

Harry noticed a movement from the other side of the room. Malfoy, like Harry, had raised his head, and every thought and feeling seemed nakedly painted on his face. A twinge of pain ached through Harry at the rawness of the want, the way Malfoy’s eyes were wide and pink-edged, and then the way a wave of sadness and fear closed down his face again. It happened so quickly he didn’t know whether anyone else had noticed, but he had. He averted his eyes before Malfoy noticed; it seemed too private a moment to have witnessed.

When he looked around his classmates, even though he knew that Susan’s family had been killed - it was hard to forget when she mentioned it so often - or he remembered Neville with his parents, it was only really when Harry watched Lavender or Malfoy reacting that he felt he was seeing something in their emotions that he recognised from his own. He struggled to put any of these feelings into words, instead recognising the feel of it, the pulling ache in his chest, the dragging sadness of it all. The days of Lavender mooning after Ron or Malfoy sneering over Quidditch seemed quaint and childlike in comparison.

As they filed out of class the excited chatter grew in volume. Some students stayed back to talk to McGonagall, but Harry and Ron left with the others.

“What do you reckon, then?” Ron asked.

“Hmm?” Harry’s attention was still half on Malfoy, moving as he always did now: head down, talking to no one. “Oh, yeah. Brilliant. I’m going to sign up. And you?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “Do you think we could do it?”

“Of course we can do it,” Hermione said. “Although it will be a lot more work. I’ll have started on my revision by then, but I’m sure I can fit it into my timetable.” She sounded excited by the prospect.

Ron groaned. “Hermione, exams are months away. Terms away, even.”

“All the more reason to use my time wisely,” Hermione said. “Especially now I know they’re going to be throwing extra classes at us after Christmas.”

“As if you’d pass up the chance to take on an extra class,” Ron said, and pulled her into a hug.

Harry turned away, his heart a mess of feelings as it always was when they hugged, or held hands, or gave each other a quick kiss on meeting or leaving each other. He loved them both, and part of him warmed in their obvious love for each other. At the same time, it changed how they were as a trio, and he hadn’t quite worked out what it meant. Before he could get too morose about this Hermione had linked her arm through Harry’s and the three of them made their way down to lunch together.

***

Lavender hadn’t been there at the start of term. It had been so confusing, those first few days, and so many hadn’t returned that Harry had assumed that she wouldn’t be coming back either. When he’d seen her that last day, with the castle in ruins around them and victory muted by grief’s shocked silence, she’d seemed to be halfway between the living and the dead herself. Parvati had sat by her side, weeping, while Trelawney watched over them both with a pale face and occasional swigs from a hip flask.

It had been a surprise then, two weeks into term, to see her walk in at breakfast to join the eighth-year table. Parallel pink scars dragged down one side of her face, and she held the right side of her body tightly. When she turned and the scars were hidden, the other side of her face seemed the same as before - almost the same: her softness had changed into something leaner, hollower.

For once Harry had wished the attention would turn back onto him, wished the whispers and the glances were aimed at his small scar and not her fresh ones.

“She’s changed,” Hermione said to him late one night, after Ron and the others had gone to bed. She sat in front of the fire in the eighth-year common room, her knees pulled up to her chin and her feet tucked up on the armchair. Even though they were alone, they still spoke quietly. They knew, in these quiet chats - whatever the configuration of people having them - that this was a transgression, necessary but prying at the same time. They were all stumbling through, trying to understand each other, trying to understand what they had all been through. “When we shared in Gryffindor, she and Parvati giggled all the time. It drove me up the wall.” She sighed. “I don’t see her giggle or even smile.”

“Do you blame her?” Harry said. He remembered the animal power of Greyback and shivered. “I didn’t think she’d survive that attack.”

“She nearly didn’t,” Hermione said quietly. “She lost so much blood… if St Mungo’s hadn’t sent over that extra Blood-Replenishing Potion…” She blinked back tears.

Harry reached out for Hermione’s hand. “We shouldn’t have had to live through any of that,” he said. 

“That includes you, you know,” Hermione said, and she gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m glad to be back here. I needed this… a chance to let go, for a bit, of having to be grown up.”

“Even though you’re so good at it?” Harry said with a soft smile.

“Especially because I’m so good at it,” Hermione said. She gave his hand another squeeze, then went back to hugging her knees. “I need this time, to rest. But what about you?” Her eyes were dark, and serious, and Harry’s heart grew in their gaze. This was what she offered him, and he loved the comfort of her care.

“I… I don’t know what I need. I want to be able to relax, but… everywhere I go I see how things were, how things have changed.” He stared into the dying fire. “Who’s not here,” he added quietly.

“Maybe that’s what you need,” Hermione said. “A chance to lay these ghosts to rest, before having to rush on with the rest of your life.”

“Maybe,” said Harry, but he couldn’t see how. Still, it was warm by the fire, and he felt the calmest he had in days sitting there with her.

***

Sleep, when it came, was welcome, but Harry’s days were framed by the quiet hours of darkness in which he lay awake in his bed, or sat in the cold and empty common room.

One morning in October, long before the sun was due to rise, he was wrapped in a blanket by the fire when Lavender crept into the room. He wasn’t surprised; he knew others couldn’t sleep too, and sometimes sat quietly with someone else, or heard them moving around from his bed.

“Hi, Harry.”

“Lavender.” He moved up on the sofa to make room for her, but she sat in the armchair nearest the fire.

“One thing that hasn’t changed is how bloody cold this castle can get,” she said.

Harry Summoned a blanket and dropped it in her lap. She flashed him a quick smile, half her face lighting up while the other half pulled tight. The smile faded as fast as it had appeared, and her hand rose to her face before she snatched it back down to her lap. Lavender stared straight ahead, and took a couple of deep breaths. She didn’t turn back towards Harry, and she twisted her hand in the blanket after she wrapped it around her shoulders.

It seemed better to look back at the fire, and leave her to whatever it was she was going through. Harry didn’t know what to say, but he did know that she had chosen to sit with him, and maybe that was enough.

They sat together in silence broken only by the quiet crackle of the fire, until the rest of the students began to stir and Lavender faded back in the direction of the girls’ rooms.

Some wounds, Harry had no idea how to heal.

***

For once, Harry was soundly asleep when he was woken by a noise. His hand reached for his wand, his senses on high alert and wide awake before he knew it. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and his breath was coming rapidly as he pushed aside his bed drapes and surveyed the room. In the gloom he made out the shape of Malfoy, sitting up in his bed.

The quiet room seemed to fill with the beating of Harry’s heart, but Malfoy didn’t look up at him. Maybe Malfoy couldn’t sleep. That would make sense, everyone had trouble sleeping. Harry had seen bottles of Dreamless Sleep Potion on more than one bedside table.

But this was _Malfoy_. Harry had followed Malfoy around for a year, and no one had believed him when he’d said that Malfoy was up to no good, and he had been, hadn’t he? He’d been trying to kill Dumbledore, and to find a way to let the Death Eaters into Hogwarts.

When Malfoy crept out of the room, Harry waited a minute, then slipped out of bed himself. He opened his trunk as quietly as he could and pulled out his invisibility cloak and the Marauder’s Map. He knew how to do this; he had had a lot of practice.

Harry followed the _Draco Malfoy_ dot as it moved across the castle. He watched it walk up the stairs at the end of the corridor, up and up until it reached the seventh floor. With the cloak wrapped around him as best as he could manage - he was a fair bit taller than he had been when he’d first got it - he followed Malfoy.

He’d known, somehow, when he saw that Malfoy was heading to the seventh floor, that he was heading here. Harry had seen him trace this path before, only then he hadn’t known what it meant. The seventh floor was supposed to be out of bounds, too, and Harry felt a thrill run through at the sight of Malfoy breaking the rules. Harry was right to be suspicious of him!

The map remained blank; it never had shown the Room of Requirement. One end of the corridor showed spell damage, and Harry could see why it was out of bounds. He ignored the little nagging voice pointing out that he was there, too, breaking the rules. The door to the Room though, was whole. And visible, Harry noted. Could it disappear anymore, or was it waiting for Harry? He didn’t want Malfoy to know that he had been following him, so he didn’t dare open the door. What was Malfoy doing on the other side of it? Harry huffed in frustration.

The door creaking made Harry start, and his heart rate shot up again, but gave him enough time to make sure the cloak was covering him properly before it fully opened. The moon, which had been hidden behind the clouds, must have found a gap to peek through, because Harry could make out every detail of Malfoy’s face as he paused in the doorway. His skin seemed ghostly white, his hair a gleam of silver, and his mouth was downturned as though he were crying, but Harry could see no tears.

Malfoy crossed to the window at the end of the corridor, and rested both arms on the stone lintel. He took deep breaths as though there were no glass there, and he were filling his lungs with fresh air. His face, when he raised it to look out, seemed pained, or even frightened. Was he scared or sad? It was hard to tell. Harry held himself as still as possible, hardly daring to breathe although his chest ached with the effort of keeping it low and steady.

When the moon disappeared again behind a cloud, and the corridor was cast into darkness once more, Harry made out a drop in Malfoy’s shoulders and heard a long sigh.

The thought occurred to Harry that however he had followed Malfoy in the past, they had never been sharing a dormitory before. Even with the cloak, how was he going to get back without alerting Malfoy to his presence?

His dilemma was solved when Malfoy abruptly turned and went back into the Room.

Harry waited a minute in case he reemerged, but when the corridor remained silent he wasted no time in hurrying back to the eighth-year rooms.

He lay back in his bed, willing his heart to slow and his breathing to return to normal, and waited for Malfoy to return. Sleep came first, but when Harry woke in the too-bright light of morning, Malfoy was back in his bed and fast asleep.

***

“Come on, Harry, enough of this moping around.” Harry was still tired from his night-time adventures, and after a lie in hadn’t moved much beyond going for lunch. Neville grabbed Harry’s arm and hauled him off the sofa. “This is going to end up with a Harry-shaped dent in it.”

Ernie, who was standing by the windows, turned around. “It’s stopped raining, and it looks like it’s brightening up. Who’s up for a walk to Hogsmeade?”

“Has your brother really moved there?” Padma asked Ron. “Is he going to be opening up a Wheezes shop in Hogsmeade?”

“If he is I bet McGonagall would consider paying him not to,” said Anthony. He rubbed his hands together to warm them in front of the fire, having to bend his tall frame to reach. “He’d sell out every weekend.”

Ron snorted. “And that’s exactly why he wants to set up a shop here.”

It was, Harry knew, and it wasn’t. But he let himself be pulled along, and found his coat and a long scarf to wrap around his neck.

Malfoy, sat in the corner of the room at one of the study tables, his nose deep in a book, made no obvious sign of having heard any of the conversation happening around him. Harry, though, noted the way his shoulders rose and tightened, and the slight tremble to the book in his hand.

Hermione and Daphne, at the next table, looked up from their Arithmancy homework at the same time. “We’ll come in a bit,” Hermione said, and pulled another book towards her.

“I’m getting everyone a Butterbeer,” Padma said from the doorway to the girls’ dormitories. She had a giant, sequined, and flapping blue butterfly pinned to her top. “But then you’ve all got to get me one. It is my birthday.”

“And what if I don’t want a Butterbeer?” Anthony asked.

“Tough titties.” Padma stuck out her tongue. “My offer is limited to Butterbeers only. Our mum sent us some money for our birthday, she’d not be happy if it got spent on anything harder.”

Harry wondered if the offer would be open to Daphne if she turned up with Hermione. He looked over at the two of them with their pile of books. Probably, he decided. Daphne was so serious about her studies that she seemed to be treated differently to the other Slytherins, like an honorary Ravenclaw, and Hermione had been getting on with her and Lisa since they had been sharing a room.

“Don’t think I’m spending my birthday money on this load of idiots,” Parvati said from where she was bundled up with Lavender, the two of them somehow managing to occupy one armchair. “And I don’t care if it’s stopped raining, it’s still too cold to go out.”

Lavender hadn’t been to Hogsmeade yet, and Parvati rarely left her side. No one mentioned either of these facts as they hunted out gloves and shoved on boots. Before she left though, Padma kissed Parvati on the top of her head and whispered something in her ear. She got a smile and a nod in return, then headed to the door.

“I don’t see how your mum will know,” said Lisa. “It’s not like she’s going to be there.”

Padma turned back to the room and did a whole-body shudder. “I would hope not. She told me to spend the money on books.” Harry hadn’t known Padma that well before, and had vaguely assumed that she was like her sister. She was completely different, far more easy-going and very funny.

Everyone laughed, except for Malfoy, alone at his table. His head dipped lower.

Harry opened the door for Padma and Lisa, and left Malfoy to sulk in his corner with the others who remained for company. They might not need it, but Neville was right, he couldn’t mope all the time. The fresh air would do him good.

***

Ginny and Luna had met them on the main staircase, and it was still painful enough to be near Ginny for Harry to prefer walking ahead with Ron and Neville. Once they got caught up on the topic of Muggle telly - it didn’t hold the same interest for him - Harry dropped out of the conversation and upped his pace. Soon he’d left the slow-moving group of eighth and seventh years, and walked the rest of the way alone.

Parvati was right, it was bloody cold outside, but Harry kept striding into it until his cheeks grew hot with exertion and his ears were stinging from the wind. At least he felt it, rather than the crushing sense of… whatever kept him awake and sitting on the sofa.

Clouds of white breath gave way in front as he marched on, until the steep rooftops of Hogsmeade were in sight.

A few Hogwarts students were standing outside shops, looking at the window displays, but most were inside or enjoying a drink in the warmth inside. Harry stepped around the glow of the shops, and headed instead to a side street of small cottages at the edge of the village.

George answered after the second round of knocking, and Harry realised he must have been asleep, as he had crinkle marks all on one side of his face, visible through his wispy stubble.

“Harry,” he said, leaning on the door and rubbing his eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

“Oh, sorry, did I wake you? I can go if you wa—”

“No, no, come in. It really is good to see you.”

George held the door wider, and Harry stepped in.

The cottage had low ceilings, and only two rooms downstairs and two above. They made their way into the dark kitchen, which brightened into a cheerful glow when George lit some lamps. 

“Didn’t feel like heading to the Three Broomsticks with the others?”

Harry shook his head.

“How about I make us both a cup of tea?”

Harry sat at the bashed kitchen table, thinking that this was as close as he could get to sitting with Molly Weasley. It felt… homely, if not precisely like home.

“Thanks. I… I don’t know. It’s strange, being back at school.”

“I can’t imagine.” George opened the door to his kitchen range, and threw in another log, then filled a kettle with water and set it on top.

Harry watched George move around his small kitchen, his movements methodical and calm. George was quieter now, without Fred. He took more time to think his words through before saying them. As he came to sit at the table with Harry, he added, “You’re not quite who you were before.”

“No,” said Harry. “I’m not. It’s like… there’s a part of me that feels tired. Grown up. It just wants to hide away, not talk to anyone.” He thought about how much he’d wanted to sleep, after the battle. “But there’s another part of me that wants to be young - that knows I am still young - that wants to have fun. It’s just… It’s hard.”

“It’s hard to have fun when you’re tired, and when you’re still getting used to… everything that happened.”

“Yeah, exactly that.” The feelings felt tangled up inside Harry, and it was hard to get them out in any way that made sense.

“It’s strange being here, but not being at Hogwarts,” George said. “When we were living above the shop it took up so much of our time. We were serious about making it a successful business, but at the same time we had fun. It was all about having fun.” A sad smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. “So now I’m here, where it’s quieter, and finding a new way to be me. A new way to run the business.”

“Are you really going to open a shop here?”

“Yes,” George said. “But don’t tell anyone yet. I mean, I’m sure they will guess, but I haven’t decided when yet. I still… I still need some space.”

“I think you should have all the space you need.”

“Thanks, Harry. And if you don’t mind me saying, you should have the same. Take the chance you have here, to have a break from the big bad world out there. And use it to be young again, to have fun, if that’s what you want to do. But if it means being quiet, having time to be sad or to work out who you are… that’s OK, too.”

Harry smiled. “Thank you.” When he looked at George he recognised something, a kind of aloneness. And it made him feel less alone. He hoped it made George feel less alone, too.

“What’s it like then, being back at school?”

Over his cup of tea, Harry told him about how all the eighth years were together, about how they were supposed to get over the whole school-house system and get to know each other as people. And if George sat quietly without cracking any jokes as he would have in the past, it still felt good to be with him, and to remember he was still part of the wider Weasley family.

***

“He is beautiful, though,” Ginny was saying when Harry arrived at the Three Broomsticks. She sounded like she’d already had a couple of drinks, and was waving a tankard around as she spoke.

“How can you say that?” Padma said, sounding horrified. He’s” - her voice dropped to a theatrical whisper - “a Slytherin.”

Harry closed his eyes to a sudden onslaught of dizziness, and saw again Malfoy in the dark, his hair gleaming in the moonlight. His heart started thudding in his chest again.

Ginny laughed, and Harry opened his eyes at the light, bright sound. “I know, I know. Those dark eyes though. Even his voice, it’s like melted chocolate. He is gorgeous.”

The thud of his heart eased a little as he realised they must be talking about Zabini.

“And he knows it!” Padma said, giggling.

Whatever Ginny was going to say next was lost as Luna caught sight of Harry and elbowed her. A few people turned to see what she was looking at, and their corner of the pub went silent.

Harry took a deep breath. He couldn’t carry on tiptoeing around Ginny for the rest of his life, and it wasn’t fair to expect her to do the same for him. They had agreed to break up - it had been the right decision for both of them - and they had said they both wanted to be friends.

He plastered on the most relaxed, happy smile he could, and waved. “Hi everyone.”

Ginny’s face wavered for a moment, as though between sadness and relief. She waved back, her hand near her chest: a small, private wave for Harry. Harry’s chest felt heavy and his throat tight, but it hurt a little less than normal to offer her a nod and smile in return.

Harry took a deep, steadying breath, then turned away to step forward and sweep Padma up in a hug. “Happy birthday! Now where’s my drink?”

***

Several rounds in, the mood had lightened to the point of messy merriment. Hannah and Susan had appeared, red-nosed with cold but each with a gift for Padma and another in a bag ready to give Parvati, and Lisa and Anthony had been spotted snogging by the back door. Hermione and Daphne had arrived while the group were in the middle of a rousing chorus of Weasley is our King, with Ron standing on a table with a quickly Transfigured crown on his head.

As soon as he saw Hermione, he whipped it off his head and held it behind his back.

“Don’t stop on my account,” said Hermione. She sighed when he didn’t move. “I’m not McGonagall you know, I’m not going to deduct points.”

“It’s not points he’s worried about you deducting!” Ernie called out.

Hermione fixed him with her best McGonagall-like glare, then set about taking off her cloak and going to buy even more drinks.

“She’s the best,” Ron said, as he climbed down from the table. “Nothing like McGonagall.”

“Whatever floats your boat, mate,” Ernie said. “Some people really go for that stern stuff.”

Ron puffed himself up, and stuck his chin into the air. “Would you say that,” he said, “if you knew she was behind you?”

Ernie spun around but Hermione was still at the bar. Red-faced but laughing he turned back, and the group laughed with him.

When Hermione returned with a tray of drinks, the group did settle down. However much she protested any comparison to Madam Pince or McGonagall, she had a school-teacher air about her that Harry hoped would never change. Ron had once confessed that it made the times she broke the rules all the more thrilling, and although Harry didn’t respond to this in quite the same way as Ron (and tried hard not to think about what that might be) he did understand that it was part of the magic that was Hermione.

Harry found himself in a quiet and earnest conversation with Neville and Luna.

“Have you been back to see, then?” Luna asked, tucked in tight to Neville’s side.

Harry nodded. “The door is still there.”

“When I left the Room I hoped I’d never have to go back,” Neville said.

“Did you go in?” Luna said. “What does it look like?”

“I didn’t go in,” Harry said. “It was the middle of the night. It was… well, it was a bit creepy, to be honest.”

He didn’t mention Malfoy, but he sat back with his drink and let the other two speculate about what the Room might be like now, while he thought about the way Malfoy had looked so… strange.

It was only as he was falling into bed that night, a little tipsy and cheeks still warm from the walk back, that it occurred to Harry that he hadn’t reacted at all to the sight of his ex-girlfriend telling everyone that she found Zabini attractive. For a moment Harry was confused by this thought: surely he should be jealous? But then an ease filled him, as he realised that he must be over her. Maybe this meant that they could be friends, after all.

***

Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Ginny paused at the threshold, and stared around the blackened room. The floor was covered in piles of ash, twisted and burned debris that must have been all that remained of the many things that had been stacked in the room at the time of the fire, as well as fallen stones and timber. The Room had always seemed so spacious, even when filled with centuries of hidden things - thanks, perhaps, to its tendency to change in size depending on need - but now it seemed large in an empty way, yet small in its total lack of life. Harry didn’t know when the fires had stopped burning. Maybe it was recent, because otherwise the room had been lying neglected since May, and the thought made Harry feel sad. The room deserved to at least be cleared.

“It’s unrecognisable,” Neville said. His voice sounded deep in the space, and when Harry glanced over at him, he realised that Neville’s face had none of his boyish softness left.

“It’s amazing the fires died down at all,” Ron said. “I half-expected to open the door and find it still burning.”

“It burned itself out, in the end,” Hermione said.

The heavy, sour smell of smoke and fire hung in the air.

“I don’t think there’s any point coming back,” Neville said. “After Harry started talking about it last night I wanted to see what had happened to it. But now… now I half-wish I hadn’t.” He snaked his hand out to Luna, who wrapped an arm around his waist. Harry felt a familiar tug in his gut at the sight. However he tried to move on, he missed that; he missed how he used to hold Ginny close and feel, if only for a moment, that the world would be OK.

After another minute of looking around, they all pulled back from the stench and the twisted room, back to the clear air and calm stone lines of the corridor. Hermione pulled the door shut.

“Strange how different it is on this side of the door, like there was no fire at all.”

Harry patted the wall. “The castle did well, keeping it in.”

“You always talk about it like that, like it’s a person,” Hermione said.

“I’ve always thought so,” Luna said. Harry remembered her asking to get her belongings back, and how they did indeed come back to her. He thought of him and Ron, floating stones back in place, clearing debris over the summer.

“When we were helping with the repairs, the castle seemed to get… happier, each day,” Harry said.

“Yeah,” said Ron.

“But what about the Room of Requirement?” Hermione asked. She chewed her lip slightly, Harry had noticed, when any mention was made of the summer she’d missed. Whatever had happened when she went to get her parents, he knew that nothing was going to get in the way of Hermione and her exams. Harry had never said it aloud, but he was pretty sure that if Ron hadn’t gone back this year it wouldn’t have made any difference to Hermione. She would have turned up, ready to study, no matter what.

“McGonagall and Flitwick tried,” Neville said. “I heard them talking about it. They said it was too advanced for students. I think… I think because of what happened to Crabbe they came without any students, and I know they, well, returned any remains.” They all shuffled uncomfortably at the idea. “But even after that they said… something about the Room being too wounded to be repaired. Magic doesn’t work properly in it, or runs out. You saw the room, they even gave up trying to Vanish anything. They said it was like they were being repelled from space.”

“Fiendfyre is very powerful magic,” Hermione said. “Maybe it’s like a curse scar, and can’t really heal?”

Luna answered, but Harry’s thoughts were on Hermione’s words. He’d been thinking so much of scars recently, the ones you could see, and the ones you couldn’t.

He thought of Lavender. What of the scars that wouldn’t heal? 

The five of them began walking back to the staircase. When Harry turned to look at the door once more, it had vanished. Some magic, then, remained.

***

Over the next few days, Harry watched Malfoy closely for clues about what he was up to.

He discovered several facts, but wasn’t sure what they meant.

First, Malfoy was often alone. Without the heft of Crabbe and Goyle either side of him, he seemed slight and insignificant. Harry realised how much he’d associated Malfoy with the shape of the three of them, with the unspoken power at his disposal. As for the small Slytherin contingency, although he remembered Malfoy being friendly with Zabini, things seemed far cooler between them now. Zabini seemed to spend most of his time either making sure his hair was perfect, or studying. Daphne never spoke to Malfoy, which Harry suspected was one of the reasons Hermione and Lisa had been happy to include her in their study groups. And Millicent spent all her time with the various cats around, and knitting. She had already made some socks, and had now moved onto something more mysterious in shape. Hermione said she sat in bed and read a lot, too.

None of the Slytherins spoke much. To be honest they looked terrified most of the time, even Daphne, and Harry couldn’t help the little spike of pleasure he got from seeing the ones who’d strutted and bruised their way around the school for years so subdued.

Second, Malfoy wasn’t eating enough. Harry watched him carefully at meal times. There were no more treat-laden owls from home, but Malfoy was also only managing a bite of his toast in the morning, half a sausage here, one forkful of mash there. His skin was looking paler than ever, and the dark circles under his eyes got darker every day. Every plate he pushed away infuriated Harry; he longed to pick up a fork and get Malfoy to eat more.

Third, Malfoy was falling behind in some of his classes, especially those involving any form of wand work. His pale skin would flush and his grip on his wand would tighten in silent frustration, but his defensive spells were weak, his Transfigurations never quite right.

None of these things explained why Malfoy had crept out of bed at night, or what he was doing in the burned-out husk of the Room of Requirement. 

***

“What do you think about them coming back?”

Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting at their favourite table in the library, trying to research their Charms homework.

Hermione put down her book with a sigh; it was the third interruption so far. “Who?”

“The Slytherins.”

Hermione frowned for a moment. “I think that it must be hard,” she said. “Daphne is always worrying about how other people see her.”

“She’s OK,” said Ron. “But the others…”

“I don’t know.” Hermione glanced around her and lowered her voice. “Millicent’s finding it hard. She barely speaks, and she always looks miserable.”

Harry thought of Malfoy’s face, pale and drawn in the moonlight.

“I thought you didn’t like her,” Ron said. “Remember that time she sat on you?”

“I’ve got more bad memories of her cat.” Hermione shuddered. “She’s… we’ve spoken a bit. She was a bit of a bully in fifth year, she says so herself. But— did you know her mother’s a Muggle?”

Harry and Ron shook their heads.

“She had a hard time after Voldemort came back. She was allowed back to Hogwarts last year as a half-blood, but they still treated her differently. Especially in Slytherin.”

“Dunno why anyone would want to be in Slytherin,” Ron said. “They sound horrible.”

“I might have ended up in Slytherin,” Harry pointed out.

Ron sat back and folded his arms. “Yeah, but you didn’t, because you didn’t want to.”

“And it might have been because of the Horcrux,” Hermione said. “Like your knowing Parseltongue.”

Sometimes Harry missed being able to speak to snakes, but it didn’t seem like something he could tell his friends. “I know, but why have the house at all if it was just evil? It…” He was struggling to put into words a thought that wasn’t fully formed in his own head yet. “After everything we’ve been through, maybe we need to learn to be more than our houses. I mean… look at Daphne and Millicent. They are completely different people.”

“Even Draco seems less… unbearable,” Hermione said.

“No,” Ron said. “I’m not willing to forgive him for being such a stuck-up snob and bully all these years. I don’t care how sad he looks.”

For some reason, they both turned to look at Harry.

“What?”

“You hated him the worst,” Ron said.

“And I spoke up for him at the trials this summer,” Harry said. He remembered the crowded rooms, the testimonies. He remembered the heaviness of funerals and tears. “I think Hermione’s right, it’s not as simple as good and evil.”

Ron snorted, but then his face fell into the lost, broken look that it hurt Harry to see. “Tell that to George,” he said quietly. “Or Lavender.”

Harry sighed, because there was no argument with that.

“We’ve got to be better,” Hermione said. “Better than Riddle. That’s why Harry beat him, wasn’t it? Because he wasn’t alone. Because he was loved. Maybe… maybe we need to not leave people to be totally alone.”

Madam Pince, who had tolerated their conversation up until this point, coughed pointedly and glared at them.

Harry looked down at his book again, and tried to make sense of how to Charm mice to sing.

Would George call everyone in Slytherin evil? Harry thought back to their last conversation, and George simply wanting some space. He hadn’t seemed angry, but at the same time the absence of Fred was so palpable. If everything had changed, who knew how any of them could define each other? 

***

It took several days, but in the end Harry plucked up the courage to take a more direct path to finding out what Malfoy was up to. He’d already stuffed his cloak under his pillow, and waited until Malfoy went to the bathroom to sneak out and make his way to the Room of Requirement. Malfoy had been visiting it every night, and he didn’t suppose this would be any different.

In the dark the Room was eerier than ever, and Harry wondered suddenly whether there were any new ghosts in the castle since the war. It made sense: a lot of people had died before they were ready to. The thought that Lupin could start haunting the castle made him go between a sort of longing and a still-raw sadness, but the room itself was as dead and empty as ever.

He took up position in a corner, wrapped and hidden in his cloak.

Time slowed, in the darkness, and the smell of burning filled his nostrils. Without whatever self-regulation the room had employed, the chill of the castle and the Scottish night crept into him, and he hugged his cloak closer.

About the time that Harry had begun shuffling his feet and rubbing his hands together in an attempt to keep warm, the door creaked open. Quickly Harry stilled, and hoped he was still adequately covered. Surely in the dark shadows of the room he could remain hidden, even if a bit of elbow showed.

Malfoy stepped around the half-open door, then shut it behind him. The end of his wand was lit, the light quivering like a flame. His shadow moved on the wall, a flicker that shrank and grew in the darkness.

First Malfoy walked the perimeter of the room, holding his wand high and sweeping it across the walls. He slowed at places - for no reason that Harry could determine - and repeated his sweeps, but whatever he was looking for he didn’t seem to find, as he moved on each time. What was he doing? Harry didn’t understand why he would be here, what he could hope to do or find.

Once Malfoy had walked all around the room he stood for a long time, near the door, his eyes unfocused and his still-lit wand hanging at his side. Harry waited, his breath harsh as he kept it low.

Eventually, Malfoy raised his head, and stared straight at Harry.

“I know you’re there, Potter.”

Harry stayed silent.

“I can see a portion of your hideously garish Snitch-covered sock.”

Harry looked down; the toe of one of his feet was indeed peeking out from under his cloak, and his heart dropped. There was no way Malfoy could have missed it: a Snitch was whirring and flapping all over his toe, the dim wandlight reflected in gold flashes as it moved. He considered his options, aware of how his muscles ached from holding still, and how cold his fingers had become. Seeing the way that Malfoy was glaring at him, Harry thought that Malfoy might cross the room and poke at him to prove he was there. This was enough to make a decision, and with a sigh, he removed the cloak.

“I—”

“You what?” Malfoy raised his wand again, holding it in front of him like a shield. Behind him the blackened walls were all darkness. “You thought you’d practise being an Auror, wait here to ambush me?” He stood up tall, his chest rising and falling fast, the tendons of his neck standing clear. “I’m not going to let you hurt me, I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done. And I’m not doing anything wrong here, you’re the one skulking around.”

Harry opened and closed his mouth. He thought back to the welcome feast. “McGonagall said the seventh floor west wing was out of bounds.”

“Oh please, as if that’s ever stopped you. It hasn’t stopped you tonight, has it?”

Malfoy had a point, but Harry held firm. _He_ wasn’t the one who had been coming here, night after night.

“Well, what are you doing here?”

“What do you care, Potter? And why should I have to answer to you? I could just as well ask you, although it’s already clear what you’re doing here. You were spying on me, weren’t you?”

Even in the dim wandlight Harry could see that Malfoy’s cheeks were flushed now. His eyes looked bright.

“Where’s silent meek Malfoy gone?” Harry asked. “I knew it was an act, you don’t really have it in you to be that humble.”

Malfoy took a step back and his face fell, as though Harry had struck a blow at him. He turned his face away from Harry, who all of a sudden felt as though he were witnessing something private, something he should not see.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” Malfoy said, all the bravado gone from his voice.

“I… I can’t work out what you’re doing here,” Harry said, his frustration in every word. “Why come here? It’s smelly and miserable - I’m bloody freezing now - and the last time we were both here one of your friends died in this room!”

Malfoy spoke, but his head stayed down. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No,” said Harry. “It isn’t.”

Malfoy sighed, and walked up to the nearest wall. With his free hand he touched the darkened stone.

“When I came here first, it was because I… I guess I was looking for something - a memory, a trace - of Vincent. But there’s nothing here. It’s so… empty.”

“It’s all been destroyed,” Harry said. “Why keep coming back?”

Malfoy looked up now. “You _have_ been watching me, haven’t you?”

Harry flushed. “What if I have? Last time you were sneaking off here—”

“I know!” Malfoy’s voice got louder. “Everything in this castle reminds me of the terrible things I did, terrible choices I made. Do you think I don’t think about what I did?

Harry’s skin felt hot and as though ants were crawling all over him; he felt as though his feelings were more than his body could contain. He knew all this - everyone knew it - but it was different hearing Malfoy say these words aloud.

“Why did you come back?” The question rushed out of Harry without him meaning to ask it. He had been wondering since the beginning of term, and it was always there, in the back of his mind. Why come back to the place you had betrayed so many people, hurt so many?

Although he half-expected Malfoy to crumple again, instead he stood taller, held his head high. “I had to. I wanted - I want - to have a chance to… change things. To find a way to make up for it. I… I know I can’t change what happened, but…” He trailed off, his eyes fixed on Harry with a strange brightness. “You changed things. You killed the Dark Lord.”

“I still don’t understand why you are in _here_.”

Malfoy ducked his head again. “There’s nothing here. I’ve said my goodbyes to Vince. But… this room is broken. Once I fixed something in it, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

“Worse than trying to kill Dumbledore?” Harry’s blood felt hot in his veins, and the words came out in a half shout.

“I couldn’t do it myself,” Malfoy said, self-hate and something else, something Harry couldn’t identify, in his voice. “Even with the threat of them hurting my mother, I couldn’t kill him. You know that, that’s what you told everyone, that’s why I’m here and not rotting in Azkaban. But I did fix the cabinet, and that is why he died.”

That night seemed both clear and jumbled in Harry’s memory: Dumbledore drinking that foul potion in the cave, his cursed arm, Malfoy on the tower, Snape and Dumbledore. The swell of complicated feelings that arose whenever Harry thought of his role in Dumbledore’s death - the lake, the potion, the fake locket, all of it - and then Snape, who had loved his mother always but who had been so cruel to him and his friends, washed through him. It left him saddened, as it always did. He forced it all away, not wanting to share any of it - not even a sigh - with Malfoy.

“So, you want to what, fix this room?” Harry looked around him at the charred and smoke-marked walls, the piles of ash, the dark corners. “That doesn’t seem possible.”

Malfoy’s voice sounded subdued. “I know. Except…” He looked to the door. “The door appears and disappears. There’s… something left.”

“Something?”

“Some magic, some… part of what made the room special. I keep thinking if I can only find a way to reach it, maybe I can help the room recover.”

“I don’t see how,” Harry said. “It’s… this room was gutted by the fire. There’s nothing left.”

“I can’t give up.” Malfoy’s face looked young. “I can’t.”

Harry shook his head, and raised his wand to give extra light. Malfoy shrank back, as though fearing attack, but made no move to defend himself.

“ _Lumos_ ,” he said, and his wand tip lit up like Malfoy’s, but the room felt no brighter. “I’m cold. This room is freezing and miserable, and I’m not spending another minute here. I’m going back to bed, there’s no point staying.”

“I can’t,” Malfoy said again. “Just leave me alone.”

Harry left without saying anything more. He didn’t bother to use the cloak to return to the eighth-year rooms; it was so late no one else was awake. Even the ghosts were quiet in the castle, and Harry was left alone with his thoughts as he walked down the dark corridors and staircases. He’d never seen Malfoy like this before. It felt almost as though he’d met Malfoy for the first time… maybe he’d seen a glimpse before, that night on the Astronomy tower, or the day the Snatchers took them to Malfoy Manor.

It took Harry ages to warm up in bed again, and he lay there in the cold and dark going over and over his encounter with Malfoy.

***

“Protean Charms,” McGonagall said to the silent group of eighth years, “will take a lot of hard work to master.” Harry glanced over at Hermione, then at Malfoy, as did others in the class. McGonagall followed their glances. “I am aware that some of you have already mastered this complex charm. Your role will be to support your peers in their learning. In addition you can write me an extra assignment on the historical uses of the charm, and considerations on the ethics of using it in the future.

“The rest of you, once you too have mastered the charm, will be completing a similar assignment, so don’t think you’ve got off lightly.”

A rumble of discontent went around the class, but was cut off by one of her sharp stares.

“Before we start the practical aspects needed as the basis of the charm,” McGonagall continued. “What can you all tell me about it?”

Hermione’s hand shot up, but after all these years this didn’t mean much: she always knew the answer.

McGonagall smiled at her. “I know you will have a practical as well as theoretical perspective here, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say in a minute.”

Hermione nodded, lowered her hand, and smiled back. 

Susan put up her hand, and McGonagall nodded at her to speak. 

“It’s what You-Know-Who used to put the Dark Mark on his followers.” She glared at the back of Malfoy’s head. “It’s how he called them all to him. My aunt told me.” _Before she died_ , Harry finished silently. Before she was killed by Death Eaters.

“So we might surmise,” McGonagall said. “But why might we think so? What do we know about what the charm does, how it works? Why are we learning this in Transfiguration as well as Charms?”

The lessons were being divided between the two subjects. Hermione had already told Harry that it would come up in both sets of exams. Harry listened for Susan’s answer, because he still wasn’t entirely clear how it worked - despite using the Charmed coins Hermione had made for Dumbledore’s Army.

“It connects a group of objects, Charms them to change for a purpose. And it’s the act of making identical objects that means we are learning this part in your class, Professor. Changing the objects after this is more Charms-based.”

“Very good, Miss Bones. Now can you tell me how this relates to the Dark Mark?”

“Some people think that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named used a form of the charm, that the Dark Mark was Charmed so that when he touched one, the Marks on every Death Eater’s arm called them to him.”

Harry was aware of Malfoy sitting ramrod straight, staring straight ahead of him. There were rumours that Malfoy had taken the Mark himself, but Malfoy refused to confirm or deny this. He always wore long sleeves, which meant no one could check and the rumours spun on. The very act was suspicious in itself.

“So not on objects, but on people. The Protean Charm is not normally performed onto the bodies of witches and wizards; indeed there is a lot to tell us that to do so is not a good idea.”

Hermione’s hand shot up again.

“Yes, Miss Granger?”

“When the Protean Charm is activated, it can cause local heating,” Hermione said. “Having one on your body would be incredibly painful. It says something about Voldemort’s cruelty if he chose to use one on his follower’s skin.”

“Indeed.” McGonagall pursed her lips. “And it is also risky; there is a high chance of permanent injury or scarring.” She surveyed the class. “So, no performing it on yourselves or each other. What then are the uses of the charm?”

From the back of the class came a slow movement as Millicent raised her hand. “It’s useful for long-distance communication,” she said. “Traditionally it has been used by separated lovers.”

“Yes, very good. Any other uses?”

“We used it in the DA,” Anthony said. His hand went to his pocket, and Harry realised he was probably still carrying his DA Galleon. “It’s how so many knew to come back for the battle.”

“And Miss Granger hasn’t been the first person to use it for this purpose; in many ways we can see similarities with Voldemort’s use of the Dark Mark. Your first homework assignment on this topic will be to find as many possible uses for the charm. I expect at least four inches on this. Next week we will begin to learn the wand work needed.”

Once class was dismissed, Harry let the other students flow out until he was the last left.

“Excuse me, Professor.”

“Yes, Harry?”

Harry noticed how McGonagall always switched to their given names in private. He wondered if, after he left the school, he would be invited to call her Minerva. He couldn’t imagine it.

“I was wondering how the repairs are going to the rest of the castle. I know we did a lot over the summer, but there are some parts still not fixed, aren’t there, Professor?”

“We did indeed do a lot over the summer, and I am grateful to you, Harry, for all the time you gave. I hope… I hoped we could give you some space, here, away from…”

The press, the whole mad world of the wizarding public. The people who felt they knew Harry because of what they had read about him, but who he did not know at all.

“You still are,” Harry said. “Thank you.”

“Why do you ask about the repairs?”

“I was wondering if there’s anything I can do to help.”

McGonagall shook her head. “You’ve done enough, Harry.”

“I was being selfish too,” Harry said. “There might be some good Transfiguration practice in there. I mean, how do you heal a magical castle?”

She regarded him with sharp eyes. “What an interesting question. And how interesting that you ask it now, not months ago.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Harry said. “I keep thinking about the castle almost as a person. The others think I’m strange but it seems… it still seems hurt in places.”

“You are right, it is still hurt. And some of the work we do is Transfiguration and Charms-based. Other times though, we don’t know what to do, and it takes much trial and error to repair or remove spell damage. Especially from a castle this old, this complex.”

She gathered up her things, which Harry took as his cue to leave. His conversation with Malfoy the other night had stirred up so many questions for him. Was it possible to repair the Room of Requirement? How could Malfoy succeed where experienced witches and wizards like McGonagall and Flitwick had failed?

But then he thought again of Malfoy, returning day after day until he repaired an unrepairable Vanishing Cabinet. He could see, in a weird, twisted way, Malfoy’s logic in wanting to fix the room to make up for his earlier actions.

***

“We saw George in Hogsmeade,” Ron said. His face was still glowing from the walk through the cold and the dark back to the castle; at this time of year the sun set before five. “He had a good five-minute moan about the pumpkin Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks.”

“Considering all the rubbish he’s made us test over the years I can’t see how he can complain,” said Harry.

“I didn’t like it,” Hermione said, scrunching up her face. “It was too sweet for me.”

“Not you as well!” Ron said. He leant towards Harry, giving him a gentle poke in the ribs with his elbow. “It’s a pity you didn’t come, Hogsmeade looked cool, there were almost as many pumpkins there as in the Great Hall.” He paused, as though remembering something. “And George says hello.”

Harry shrugged. It had been quiet that afternoon, with most people out. Halloween was a strange day for Harry. Everyone else might have wanted to have a chance to relax and have fun, but he was always aware that it was also the anniversary of the day he got his scar. The day he became an orphan.

Hermione gave him an understanding smile, and a quick rub on the shoulder before heading to the girls’ rooms to put away her shopping bags.

“Also he bought you some bottles of the pumpkin Butterbeer.” 

“I thought he hated it?”

Ron grinned. “He said there was no reason why you shouldn’t suffer along with the rest of us.”

“Thanks, I guess.” At least it sounded as though George was OK. It was hard to tell with him; sometimes he seemed fine, other times the sadness was so distinct it was painful to be in his company.

Ron launched into a tale about the state of George’s cottage when he first moved  
in - there had been a bad pixie infestation. Harry tuned out a bit, thinking about how this was the room he’d sat in as a little first year, staring at the Mirror of Erised and his parents. In a way, it made him feel closer to them. It was better, at any rate, than the flashes he’d seen of the night 18 years before.

His quietness lasted into dinner in the Great Hall. He wasn’t in the mood for fun; the burdens of loss and memory felt too present. He sat back, watching his friends laugh and joke. Ron, Ernie and Anthony were teasing Susan about being so serious, even though Susan was in floods of giggles. Hannah was rosy-cheeked, leaning into a conversation with Neville, while Millicent and Lisa were talking intensely on the other side of the table. Blaise was making Daphne blush - he was, as the girls often said, very good-looking. Even Lavender was smiling as she talked to Parvati and Padma.

It made him happy to see his friends so relaxed. He’d enjoyed celebrating Halloween with his friends in the past, anniversary or no anniversary, but now It was as though the weight of everything that had happened the past few years was there, too. On another day he might have joined in, but in this mood he was content to sit back and watch.

As he looked around the hall, Harry couldn’t help but notice that one person was missing: Malfoy was nowhere to be seen. Harry even checked the Slytherin table, in case he’d found refuge there, but to no avail.

Malfoy hadn’t been in their bedroom, the bathroom, or the common room before they left. The library was closed - Madam Pince was sitting with Hagrid at the teachers’ table - so there was only one place that Harry could think Malfoy would be.

Before the puddings appeared, Harry made his excuses and left the table. In his pocket were a couple of pumpkin pasties he’d wrapped in a napkin earlier on. He nodded at Hermione, who was watching him with kind eyes, and made his way out of the hall.

Harry went back to the eighth-year rooms, then stood in the threshold looking at the empty room while he decided what to do. He had been hoping, he realised, to find Malfoy sitting by the fire. After a quick check of the other rooms, Harry picked up an extra jumper and a blanket, and then the Butterbeer that George had given him. He stopped and stared around the empty common room. There was one more thing he needed to get. He went back to the bedroom, and rooted around in his trunk until he found it. Already feeling lighter, he headed to the Room of Requirement.

Barnabas the Barmy waved at Harry as he got onto the seventh floor corridor. The door to the Room was visible, as it was the last time Harry had come. If he hadn’t seen it wink out of sight the time he’d come with Neville and the others, Harry wouldn’t have believed it could still appear and disappear.

Gingerly, he pushed the door open. Although much of the room was in darkness, one corner was lit by the warm glow of Malfoy’s lantern.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Malfoy looked up as the door clicked shut.

“Not with all your jolly friends?”

“No,” Harry said. He sat down beside Malfoy.

“Did I say you could join me? And what part of ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand?”

“It’s not like the room belongs to you.” Malfoy being an arse was easier to deal with than a room full of people laughing and joking; his rudeness brought heat to Harry’s cheeks, made him feel alive in a way that reminded him flying high on his broom. “I brought you some pumpkin pasties, and some Butterbeer.” He handed Malfoy a bottle. “It’s pumpkin flavoured, too.”

Malfoy turned the bottle over in his hand. “How do I know you don’t want to poison me?”

“Apparently it’s horrible, but poison you? What would be the point?”

“I’d be surprised if you didn’t want to.” Malfoy peered at the label. “You brought me something to drink that you think is horrible? I don’t need your pity,” he said, putting the bottle down and turning away.

“I’ve never had it before,” Harry said, opening his own bottle and taking a sip. “Happy pumpkin day.” The Butterbeer tasted like a mix between regular Butterbeer and pumpkin juice, with an extra layer of warm spices. It was sweet, but Harry liked it. “This isn’t that bad,” he said. “Go on, you try it.”

“Why do you think I want to talk to you at all?”

“You don’t want to talk to anyone, so what difference does it make? Me, a stinking burned-out room, Neville’s Mimbulus Mimbletonia… just pretend I’m one of them.”

There was a silence while Malfoy pouted.

“That is a difficult choice to make,” Malfoy said in the end. He sighed. “Fine. I’ll have the drink. And the pasty. But I’m not going to sit here and chat like we are the best of friends.”

The next silence stretched until Harry had drunk more of the Butterbeer, and was beginning to think that he should have grabbed more blankets. The cold of the floor seeped through his clothes, and his ears were cold.

“It’s nice and quiet here,” he said.

“It was until you arrived.”

“I’ve been quiet!”

“You’re not now.”

Harry could feel the cold floor, but he could also feel a building nervous roil in his stomach as he thought about the extra wand in his pocket. He’d waited this long, he couldn’t wait any longer. He wasn’t a Gryffindor - or former Gryffindor, whatever it was he was now - for nothing. “I think I’m going to cast a Warming Charm. Shall I do you, too?” There was a slight wobble in his voice that he hoped Malfoy hadn’t noticed.

Malfoy looked at Harry, with his extra jumper and wrapped in a blanket. “You’re cold? With all that?”

“The floor is cold,” Harry explained. “Aren’t you freezing, too?”

Malfoy didn’t answer, but Harry noticed how pale his hands were as they clutched the Butterbeer.

“Warming Charm, then?”

“If you must.”

Harry cast the charm, feeling with some relief his buttocks lose their chill. The pallor of Malfoy’s skin began to look a little less deathly. 

“Thank you.”

“Do you know, I think that must be one of the only times you’ve thanked me for anything.”

Malfoy glared at him. “Do you want me to do a little song, too?”

“That’s not what I—” Harry sighed. “Do you want to know why I came to find you?”

“You were moping and wanted to feel less miserable by being with someone even more miserable?”

That was a bit close to the mark. Harry shuffled his now-warm bum. “There’s something else. Er, I mean, that’s not it.”

Malfoy gave him a knowing look.

“The thing is,” Harry continued, “I’ve got something I want to give you.”

“I’m not sure I want anything you have to give.”

“You already took the Butterbeer and the pasty,” Harry pointed out.

“Those don’t count.”

“Look, you git, I’m trying to do something important.” Harry took a deep breath, then reached into his pocket, slowing right down when he clocked the way that Malfoy had frozen. “I’m not going to Hex you.”

Malfoy’s eyes tracked Harry’s hand. The hard look of distrust on his face broadened into shock when Harry produced Malfoy’s hawthorn wand - the one he’d had since Malfoy Manor.

“My wand.” Malfoy reached out for it, then stilled his hand at the last moment.

“I wanted to give it back.” Harry held it out closer to Malfoy

“And you waited until we’d been back two whole months?”

Harry thought of all the times he’d seen Malfoy fumble in class, and felt bad. But he knew he hadn’t been ready earlier. “You’re not the easiest person to approach.”

Gingerly, as though Harry might disappear if he moved too fast, Malfoy reached his hand out and took the wand. In the single, tiny moment when they were both holding it at once, Harry could feel Malfoy’s tremble through the hawthorn wood of it.

Malfoy cradled the wand, as though it were the most precious thing on Earth. “Thank you,” he whispered again.

“Er,” Harry said. “Thing is, I won it off you, right?”

“I do remember,” Malfoy said. “What was the charming thing you said to me? Winners keepers?”

“Yeah, well, it meant I could defeat _him_ , you know. In the end.”

Neither of them needed to say who ‘him’ was.

“But like I was saying,” Harry continued, “I won it off you. And it works for me. I’m not sure… I don’t know if it will work for you anymore.”

Malfoy’s grip on the wand tightened, his fingers curled around it. He bowed his head, held onto his wand, and didn’t move.

Harry waited, again, to see what Malfoy would do or say.

“Do you think,” Malfoy said in a small, tight voice, and without lifting his head, “that you would mind awfully fucking off now, so I can see if this works without having the humiliation of having to do so in front of you?”

“I—”

“Please,” added Malfoy. “There you go, a please and a thank you for your collection. Please, just go. Leave me alone.”

Harry was left with a horrible knot in his stomach as he walked back to the empty eighth-year rooms. That wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. But then he didn’t really know what he’d been wanting or expecting. Whatever it was, it certainly hadn’t included Malfoy feeling humiliated. He’d have to find some way to fix this. 

***

Lamplight filled the corners of the library; the afternoon had already fallen through dusk to the darkness of a winter evening. Harry didn’t notice, too busy trying to find some answers about the Room, something to bring back to Malfoy. It had upset him, leaving Malfoy like that on Halloween. But then again he’d seen Malfoy using his wand, successfully, in lessons, so at least he knew the wand worked.

He wished Malfoy would talk to him though. It all felt so… brutal, the end to their last encounter. Maybe, he reasoned, if he could bring some information about how to fix the Room it would make up for it.

Hermione found him amongst a pile of books. Or rather, when she arrived to sit at her favourite table, he was already there.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hello to you, too.” Harry moved over his books to make space for her.

“How many times have you ever come in here without me dragging you and Ron here?”

“I—” He shut his mouth. “It has happened before.”

She snorted, but smiled and patted his hand before opening her bag and pulling out her notes on Protean Charms. “Maybe you’re finally ready to study without needing me to—”

“Encourage me?”

“Hassle you,” Hermione said. “You and Ron are like two big lazy babies sometimes.” She put on a squeaky voice. “Oh Hermione, could I just have a look at your notes? You’ll let us copy your homework, won’t you?”

“That’s not fair,” Harry said. “My voice isn’t that squeaky. Nor is Ron’s.”

She harrumphed, and gave him a little shove with her elbow as she sat down, but they were both grinning. This was a well-worn routine, much repeated over the years.

“Anyway, what are you looking at?”

“I’ve been wondering about the repairs to the castle,” Harry said. He didn’t want to mention Malfoy. “Over the summer we were mainly involved in physical repairs - rebuilding walls, things like that. But Hogwarts suffered a fair bit of spell damage, and not everything has been fixable.”

“Like the Room of Requirement?”

“You heard Neville, that seems beyond repair.” Harry didn’t want to draw attention to the Room: it didn’t seem his to talk about, somehow. “It got me to thinking about how all the Transfiguration and Charms stuff we learn is used, for real, out there.” He gestured vaguely. “I mean, we learn what it says in the books, but people use these spells every day, for their jobs. Like Bill.”

“I think this is where it gets really interesting,” Hermione said. “Last year, we used magic, we really used it. Some of it saved us.” She paused, and he knew they were both thinking of all the Perimeter Spells they had performed, hiding them and their tent. “Some of the magic was” - her voice faltered, a faint crack coming through - “not without its price.” Hermione had got her parents back, but she still wouldn’t talk about the experience. Harry couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her.

“It seems to me,” Harry said, “that we have the chance to find out how magic can… I don’t know, heal us. What magic means when there’s peace, not war.”

“Oh Harry,” Hermione said, her eyes filling. “I never thought I’d see this day. You want to apply your learning, and you’re joining up the dots all by yourself.” She threw her arms around him. “I’m so proud of you.” She sat back and dabbed at her eyes. “I knew you’d get there, eventually.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, “I think.” It didn’t entirely feel like a compliment, and besides, he had done plenty of research over the years - he remembered hours searching for Nicholas Flamel, or more recently, any clue about the Horcruxes.

“Oh don’t be silly, I know you’re perfectly capable,” Hermione said. “I’m just happy to have some company.”

Harry looked at her, and saw she meant it. She was right, too, he and Ron had copied an awful lot of homework off her over the years. It felt different now; he wasn’t that little boy anymore. It occurred to him that maybe that’s what Hermione meant by company. She’d had to be so grown up, responsible for so much of their learning over the years. A kind of shame rose up, but faded just as quickly again. They’d all had to be more adult than their years, and shouldered more responsibility than they should ever have had to bear.

He turned back to his books with a sigh. Was it possible to repair the Room of Requirement? He kept asking himself this question; he hoped the books might have an answer. He picked up one at random, and flicked through it to see if it had a section on Fiendfyre.

***

Rain hammered on the windows, silver on the black of the night sky. It hadn’t let up all day, most of which Harry had spent in the library again, trying to get to grips with Fiendfyre. When they’d flown out of the fire, he and Malfoy were together on a broom. _Draco_ , his brain helpfully supplied. _You called him Draco that day._ He ignored that little voice: there was too much history between them for _Draco_. Malfoy it would stay. When he and _Malfoy_ had seen Crabbe fall and left the heat and flames behind them, Harry had never wanted to even see the word Fiendfyre again.

His heart echoed the relentless beat of the rain as he waited, much as he assumed Malfoy was waiting in his bed. One by one lights were extinguished, books put down, and breathing slowed as their roommates fell asleep. Often Harry would wait in the dark until he heard Malfoy pull back his curtains and creep out of bed. At first, a hot anger and frustration had taken hold of Harry: anger at Malfoy for making his life complicated when he wanted it to be simple. But now this question of the Room had grown to take up so much of Harry’s mental space, he simply wanted an answer to it.

After Malfoy had left, Harry lay there for a while, listening to the rain on the windows. From what he’d read, there must still be something left of the room - the sentient or magical part of it - for it to have survived. The appearance and disappearance of the door was another clue. Had Malfoy done research on it?

Harry flung back the covers. He wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he’d satisfied his curiosity on this. Taking care to pick up an extra jumper and scarf Harry hurried to the seventh floor. When he got to the corridor with the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching the trolls to dance, the door to the Room was visible. Was it waiting for him?

He pushed it open slowly, and Malfoy spun from his corner, his wand in front of him. A lantern lit his side of the room, its warm glow reaching in an arc around him.

“What are you doing here again? I thought I told you to leave me alone.”

Harry stepped in and closed the door behind him. “I wanted to see the Room again.” It wasn’t entirely true: he wanted to talk to Malfoy, too.

“You didn’t have to come while I was here.”

“I’ve got questions, about the Room. I’ve been thinking about it all week. About what you talked about, trying to fix it.”

“You’ve been thinking about fixing it all week?”

Harry nodded. “I’ve been reading, about Fiendfyre and curses.”

Malfoy stared at him as though Harry had grown an extra arm or ear. “You’re not here to check on me.” It came out as a bald statement, although one heavy with disbelief.

“I’m here to… talk to you. And look at the Room,” Harry said. “I wanted to know what you’d found out.”

“Why?” Malfoy backed away in suspicion.

“Because I want to… I want to help fix the Room.”

Malfoy blinked at Harry. “With me? You hate me. You can’t stand the sight of me.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s true. I… We were both here, when it burned. You didn’t look like you wanted any of it.”

“What, so you saved me then, and now you think you know me?”

“I never said that!” Harry took a deep breath; Malfoy was infuriating in his defensiveness. “It’s been strange, coming back to school. Not having this thing hanging over me, of having to fight Voldemort.” 

Malfoy flinched at Voldemort’s name. “So I’m your project to keep you busy?”

“Stop being such an arse about this,” Harry said. “Don’t you see, I’m part of why this school is hurting? Durmstrang and Beauxbatons aren’t having to rebuild: we are, here. Because it’s where I am. And so many people—” His throat tightened, as he thought of Tonks and Lupin, side by side in the Hall, and the Weasleys gathered around Fred. “Maybe I want a chance to fix something, too,” he whispered.

“I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? Please. You’re on the winning side, I’m not going to pity you.”

“I don’t want pity. I want… I want a chance to make something. Not break or smash. Make.”

“And this is the place to do it?”

“Yes.”

Malfoy stayed silent. Harry waited, and reflected on how strange it was that it had it come to this, to him being the one trying to persuade Malfoy to give him a chance. He looked around the room, his eyes settling on the floor under the windows. The lantern-light reflected in patches from the dark, and it took Harry a moment to puzzle out why. There were puddles beneath the window, muddied with ash. No wonder it was so cold: the glass had blown out or melted, rain and the cold night air flowed straight in through twisted metal frames.

Harry moved some charred wood with his foot to clear a small area of the floor as best he could, then sat down on the cold stone floor, just inside the lantern’s circle of light.

“Argh!” 

Harry looked up: Malfoy had moved closer to him, was standing over him, and his hands were in fists, the knuckles white. “I don’t want to talk to you again, but you can’t go without me knowing if you’ve discovered anything useful. What did you find out, in your reading?” Malfoy asked.

Ignoring the urge to pull out his wand and Hex Malfoy away, Harry patted the blackened floor beside him. “Sit down. Come on.”

“I’ll be covered in ash!”

“You didn’t complain last time,” Harry ground out through gritted teeth. Why did Malfoy always have to make everything so difficult?

“I was sitting on a copy of the _Prophet_ ,” Malfoy said. “I don’t have anything to sit on today.”

“What about if I get the ash off when we go back?” Harry said. “You know, with magic.”

“Potter, you are like a child sometimes,” Malfoy said. “With magic,” he muttered to himself. But he did sit down, much closer to the lamp than Harry and in a clear patch, making a show of sweeping the worst of the ash away first.

Harry rolled his eyes, but it felt like a small victory, somehow.

“I’ll sit for five minutes, Potter. Tell me what you know, and then go.”

Five minutes. Harry hoped that would be long enough to get Malfoy to listen to him and accept his help.

“I’ve been reading about Fiendfyre,” Harry said. “I don’t know how much of this you’ll already know though.”

Malfoy nodded, and then it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Well, go on then, I won’t know unless you actually tell me.”

“Do you always have to be such a prick?”

“Just get on with it.”

“Fine.” Harry rubbed his knees as he tried to remember everything he’d read. “Fiendfyre is a curse, it doesn’t occur naturally but has to be set by someone.”

Malfoy nodded, and Harry surmised this was not news to him.

“As it is a curse, it needs to be ended by someone, too. But the person who set the Fiendfyre in this room died before he could do that.”

“Everything happened so fast,” Malfoy said. “He was a friend but he was also an idiot to try to use something so powerful in what was essentially a giant tinderbox.”

“It didn’t matter what was in the room: Fiendfyre doesn’t require fuel. The fact the room was full of stuff was incidental. Although the fire did destroy everything in here.”

“Then how did it go out?”

“Ah, now that’s the question I’ve been trying to work out an answer to all week.”

“And?”

“And the best I can come up with is that… it’s going to sound stupid.” Harry stopped. He’d been going over and over this, and really wasn’t sure if the answer he’d come up with made any sense at all. Hermione usually did the heavy lifting for him when it came to things like this.

“Potter, we are sitting in a cold, damp, burnt-out room, getting our pyjamas filthy. I think we’re past stupid.”

“Well… what if it was… the Room itself? I mean, it has - had - so much magic, it always anticipated our needs and was the most sentient-seeming part of the castle, right? And Hogwarts is already a place with so much magic woven into its very stones, over so many years. But what if it was too much, what if it - the fire and the putting out of it - almost… killed the room?”

“Killed? Almost? Why do you say ‘almost’?”

“The door.”

They both turned to look at the door to the room. Whereas from the outside it looked the same as it ever had - solid and whole - from the inside the wood was charred, the heavy metal fixtures buckled.

“It doesn’t look any better than anything else in this room.”

“You’re the one who told me about it, and I’ve seen it disappear, too. When I’ve looked back, in the corridor.”

Malfoy’s head shot round and he stared at Harry. “I knew it sometimes wasn’t there, but walking past it three times and wishing to make it appear didn’t work then, so I thought the magic was damaged, or slowly dying.”

“Yes,” Harry said. Malfoy was right: it wasn’t working in the way it always had. Why had it taken him so long to figure that out? “You’re right. I guess… that’s part of how broken it is.” Malfoy’s eyes widened when Harry said he was right, but Harry didn’t have time or space to think about that; all his energy was going on trying to understand what had happened to the Room. He frowned as he thought it all through. “If the magic is dying, or damaged, that makes sense… maybe that’s why the professors couldn’t repair the room…” Harry said. “Almost like… it’s resisting, it doesn’t want to get hurt again.”

“I’ve been coming here for weeks,” Malfoy said, slowly. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Maybe…” He started to drum his fingers on his lap. “I’ve been trying to work out what happened here, exactly. What you’ve said… I think that fits.”

“Go on.” Harry felt a swirling excitement build in his belly. This felt as though they were getting somewhere.

“This room is all burned out, but the corridor shows no sign of fire at all. I’ve been outside, looked at the castle walls - I got a broom and flew up one day - and there’s no sign of fire anywhere. I couldn’t even see the windows.”

“The Room has always been good at staying hidden,” Harry said, thinking of the Marauders Map.

“I’d got as far as considering that the fire had been contained by the room, I hadn’t considered that it was the room that put the fire out. I thought… I thought it must have burned everything in here, then burned itself out.

Malfoy sprang up. His pyjamas were indeed filthy and streaked with soot, but Harry didn’t think it the time to mention it. Malfoy walked over to the door, touched the burned wood, and closed his eyes. After a moment, he turned to look at Harry, but instead of hope he seemed full of despair.

“How am I supposed to fix it then? Especially if it resisted the professors when they tried?”

Harry got up, and brushed ash off himself as best he could. “I don’t know,” he said. He went to stand beside Malfoy, reaching out a hand to rest beside Malfoy’s. “But I’d like to help fix it, if I can.”

Malfoy looked at him then, and unlike before Harry saw hope written across it, saw it in the wideness of Malfoy’s eyes, and the way his lips were parted. 

“OK then,” Malfoy whispered, so quietly it was as though the words barely existed in the cold room.

Harry took his hand off the door, and held it forward. Malfoy looked down at his hand, then slowly brought his to join it. His fingers were cold - as were Harry’s, but his grip was firm. They shook once.

Standing, as they were, directly beside the door, there was no mistaking what happened next. A faint shiver seemed to pass over the blackened wood. Once it had passed, two shapes were left where their hands had been: two handprints on wood that was completely untouched by fire. Without thinking, Harry reached his hand back up to fit into its print. There was a solidity to the wood that felt at odds with the rest of the room.

Their eyes met in surprise.

“Did you see—”

“What just hap—”

They spoke at once, then stopped.

Malfoy put his hand on the print beside Harry’s. It was a perfect match.

“It was when we shook hands,” Harry said, pulling his hand away from the door.

“When we agreed to work together.” Malfoy still had his hand on the door, and looked at Harry in wonder. His face was still pale and drawn, but his eyes were alive in a way that felt strangely intimate to be seeing at such close range.

“Maybe what will fix the room is… working together?” The idea that Harry and Malfoy could work together was odd, and definitely without precedent in the seven years they had known each other. But then again, after all the fighting, perhaps this was what was needed. A healing and mending, not a breaking apart.

“With you?”

“Seems that way.”

Malfoy’s mouth became a tight knot as he frowned, considering. He took his hand off the door, ran it through his hair, leaving it messed up. Somehow it made him look more human, too. “Or maybe we figured out what is wrong with the room. Maybe it’s nothing to do with the two of us being here together.”

Harry doubted it. Why else have the two handprints on the door? He could see Malfoy would need some persuading. Or simply didn’t want that to be the answer.

He could understand. As it was, the idea Harry had of the world needed some… redefining to include him and Malfoy working together. It felt as though his brain were having to keep up with something moving faster than him. At the same time, it was good to feel that perhaps something was changing here. That perhaps he could have a chance at changing, too.

“Come on, Malfoy, it won’t be that bad; we might as well try. How about we meet next time we have a free afternoon? Your timetable’s the same as Hermione’s right?” He’d noticed that already, how they both took Arithmancy and Ancient Runes unlike him and Ron. “How about Thursday, after lunch?”

Malfoy was quiet, and he bit at his lip in a way that reminded Harry, for a moment, of Hermione. “I guess it would be good to be here when it isn’t so cold and dark,” Malfoy said. “I’ve been worried about what would happen if someone noticed I was missing during the day.” His mouth made a sardonic quirk. “I’d not thought that you’d be tracking me at night.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to this, because he had been keeping an eye on Malfoy day and night. Malfoy was right to think he was treated with suspicion.

“Also,” Malfoy continued, “I bet that if we get caught having you along will make things go considerably more smoothly.”

“Probably.” Harry couldn’t deny that it did change things. “Is that a yes, then?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, after a beat. Harry’s insides did strange things in that wait, things he didn’t really understand. “Thursday, after lunch. I’ll meet you here.”

Harry nodded, then stopped as he saw the door had again changed. The healed wood now radiated out from their handprints, tendrils that spread and twisted out like shoots from a seed.

“I didn’t see it happen that time,” he said.

“I can’t believe it,” said Malfoy. His voice sounded bitter. “I’ve been trying to get something to change for ages, and now you turn up and bam, it happens. Typical, really. I should have known that you needed to be involved.”

Sadness rose in Harry, rather than a need to defend himself. The hatred Harry could hear, he realised, wasn’t aimed at him, but at Malfoy himself. He tried to keep his voice light as he responded.

“Are you going to complain about this every time we meet?”

Something unreadable passed across Malfoy’s face at Harry’s words. “Probably.”

For some reason Harry preferred the idea of Malfoy complaining. It felt better than Malfoy being mean to himself. He looked at Malfoy’s thin nose and his frowning, uncertain face, and wondered what this was, this strange meeting in the middle of the night. Something about it all seemed familiar, but Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on it. 

A particularly vicious blast of wind brought in a spray of rain, and Harry shivered. The thought of his nice warm bed, safe and dry, replaced any other half-formed thoughts.

“I’m freezing,” Harry said. “Do you want to walk back with me?”

Malfoy shook his head. “I’ll spend a bit longer here,” he said.

It felt as though Malfoy was retreating from him, as though whatever that moment had been, it was over. Of course, it was possible that Malfoy had reached his Harry-limit, and couldn’t bear to be with him a moment longer. Harry was cold enough to not care, and he turned to leave.

Harry remembered what he had said earlier, and stopped before opening the door. “Do you want me to clean the ash off for you?”

“No.” Malfoy seemed tight and controlled again. “I can do it myself, when I go.”

“Bye, then,” Harry said, but Malfoy had already turned his back to him, and didn’t answer.

Before he opened the door, Harry pressed his hand into the smooth handprint in the door. It was a start. 

As Harry made his way back to the eighth-year rooms, he wondered why Malfoy wanted to stay. Maybe he had to have a good swearing session to make up for staying calm with Harry, or maybe he wanted to talk to Crabbe. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter - couldn’t, shouldn’t matter - to Harry. It was enough managing all his own strange and mixed feelings without having to worry about Malfoy’s, too.

He walked through the dark and empty corridors, thinking about his warm bed, and the sight of that spreading handprint of healed wood, he wondered what it would be like to see Malfoy the next day, knowing they had arranged to meet up later in the week.

***

Over breakfast the next day, Harry noticed the dark circles under Malfoy’s eyes, and the way his skin looked more grey and tired than normal. How long had Malfoy stayed in the Room? Harry had fallen asleep before Malfoy got back, unless Malfoy had grown stealthy enough that Harry hadn’t heard him come in. He doubted it: he had lain in bed the night before, tingling with the thought of what he’d seen in the Room and his conversation with Malfoy. He’d been aware of every snuffle and sigh from the beds around him. He had, he realised, been waiting to hear Malfoy return.

He watched as Malfoy drank a cup of tea, spread marmalade on his toast, then stared at it on the plate rather than eating it. 

“Did you get that Transfiguration homework finished?” Ron asked.

“Hmm?” Harry tore his eyes away from Malfoy to Ron, who had been busy buttering his own toast. Ron speared a couple of rashers of bacon, and began assembling a sandwich.

“Y’know, the one you were too noble to copy off Hermione.” 

“You two do not still copy off Hermione, do you?” Parvati said, breaking off from a conversation with her sister. Harry had thought no one was listening, but some people seemed to have a knack for picking up on the bits of other people’s conversations they found interesting.

“They copy off her?” Padma asked. “That’s terrible!”

“Not any more!” Harry said. Both sisters gave him doubtful looks. “Honestly, ask Hermione.” He turned to Ron. “And yes, I have finished it.”

Ron took a moment to finish chewing the massive bite of his sandwich he’d just taken, swallowing it down with a swig of tea. “There you go, Harry,” he said. “You can save the world but a Ravenclaw will always judge you on how you do your homework.”

“Ask Hermione what?” Hermione said, having come to sit next to Ron. 

“If I still copy your homework,” Harry said.

Hermione sighed, and Harry could tell that it annoyed her that they ever had. He felt a twinge of guilt; she really had carried them for years.

“No he doesn’t,” she said. “Harry won’t, and I won’t let Ron. Seems a bit unfair now.”

“Good,” Padma said, yawning. “And I didn’t say it only because I was sorted into Ravenclaw. Sometimes… sometimes I think that the house stuff is a bit tired now.”

“Bit like you,” Parvati said.

“Yeah.” Padma ignored the joke, and frowned. “I quite like being able to ignore who sorted into what, sometimes.”

Harry looked at Parvati for an explanation for Padma’s serious mood, but Parvati shrugged.

Without explanation, Padma stood up, and moved around to the other side of the table, to where Millicent was sitting alone. Harry couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was clear from the way her head bent towards Millicent that she was talking quietly.

“Millicent had a letter from her mum yesterday,” Hermione said. “I think her mum’s upset with her.” She watched Padma and Millicent, a thoughtful look on her face. “It’s strange,” she said. “I’m friends with Ginny and Luna, but I’ve never been really close to the girls I share with - sorry, Parvati, that sounds terrible.”

“No worries,” said Parvati. “We just had different interests, plus you spent all your time hanging out with these two losers.” She smiled sweetly at Harry and Ron.

“But now I can study with Lisa and Daphne, and I’ve talked to Millicent a bit… I think she’s being really brave.”

“It’s good you’re making new friends,” Harry said. “Parvati’s right, we are a pair of losers.”

“Oi, speak for yourself,” Ron said. “This loser is also her boyfriend.”

Hermione blushed, as she did every time someone used the words ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ to refer to her and Ron, even if that person was Ron himself. She then gave him a quick peck on the cheek, stood up with her plate of toast, and joined Padma to sit on the other side of Millicent.

“I never thought I’d see that,” Ron said, a big smile across his face as he watched her. “Although I’ve heard enough about giving people another chance from Hermione so I shouldn’t be. And Millicent sat on her once! It is a bit harder to imagine her giving Malfoy a chance like that, though. At least he’s not being an arse anymore.” 

Harry couldn’t remember Hermione spending much time with any of the girls she shared with before. He glanced over at the three sitting and eating together, and he was struck again at how different Millicent looked now. Harry saw a strength and vulnerability in seeing her with others like this; he saw the possibility that things could change. It seemed big and also small and tentative all at once, but it was there.

When Harry turned back to where Malfoy had been sitting, he was gone; it bothered him more than he liked to admit that he didn’t know whether or not Malfoy had eaten his toast.

***

Professor McGonagall paired them up, Harry with Hannah, and across the room, Malfoy with Millicent. Had she told him about the way Padma and Hermione had approached her at breakfast?

“The Protean Charm,” McGonagall said, “is complex and takes several steps to complete. Today we are going to learn the first step: making a set of objects that are the same. Before we begin, who can tell me why we can’t simply make duplicate copies?”

Hermione’s hand shot up.

“Miss Granger.”

“A straight-forward Gemini Charm makes identical copies, but the copies won’t last as long as the original. They deteriorate over time.”

“And does this mean that they wouldn’t work for a Protean Charm?”

Hermione crooked her head. “We could use it, I suppose. But it would be sloppy magic.” She sounded horrified at the idea.

Anthony raised his hand.

“Yes, Mr Goldstein.”

“Surely sometimes that doesn’t matter? Not that it’s sloppy,” he added quickly,” But that it doesn’t last long. If you only need it for a short period of time, what does it matter?”

“An interesting point. I am sure there may well be witches and wizards out there who do so. Could you give me an example of when this might be useful?”

“Well,” Anthony said, “How about Aurors out on a mission, in need of a quick and temporary means of communication?”

“That would be a possibility, yes. Of course, it would still be a consideration how long the charm would last, and whether it would give any distorted messages as it degrades. Exploring the rate at which this happens would make an interesting research project, should one be interested in extra credits.”

Harry wondered if Hermione would overcome her horror of sloppy magic now.

“As Mr Goldstein has pointed out,” McGonagall continued, “there may be times when a quick Protean Charm is needed.” She smiled at him, taking the sting out of her next words a little. “However,”—her voice took on a colder edge—“for the purposes of your NEWTs, I want every graduate of this school to be able to perform a perfect Protean Charm. Although a temporary version is possible, it is still important to understand that it is a charm that may fail. It would not do for you to be let down in the future by incomplete knowledge.”

She proceeded to instruct them on how to Transfigure a row of stones into a row of identical objects - forks, for this lesson.

“In future we will increase the complexity of the objects you recreate. What is important is to have a single original object, so that your copies can be as close as possible.”

Harry remember now that sometimes he did enjoy being at school. Being able to do the Protean Charm would be brilliant; he settled into concentrating on making a line of forks, all the same, from his pile of stones.

***

Thursday dawned bright and clear. The rain seemed finally to have exhausted itself, and the sky rose high and blue above them.

Whereas Transfiguration had sped by, Harry fidgeted through Herbology, his whole body restless and his mind unable to focus at all on the lesson, and then lunch. Malfoy, too, he noticed, seemed unable to sit still, looking over at Harry then away quickly throughout lunch.

The door sat in the dusty sunlight, as though the most ordinary of rooms lay beyond it. Relief rose up in Harry: some part of him had been worried that he’d get up there to find a blank wall, to find that neither the room nor Malfoy wanted him there.

He opened the door to find Malfoy standing close to it, a pink tint to his cheeks and the agitation from earlier still visible in a bouncing kind of energy. He almost hopped from foot to foot. It was such a shock to see Malfoy like this, Harry stepped back.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine.” Malfoy scowled. “Always with the stupid questions. And what are you still doing out there? Quick, come in.” His voice went up in pitch, and the scowl transformed into something more open. Harry wondered what the change was about.

He stepped into the room, and as the door shut he understood Malfoy’s excitement: the door was whole and unburned, not even singed at the edges. And at the door’s centre, their two handprints were now well-burnished and slightly indented, as though they had been pressed into the wood from a thousand touches over a hundred years. Harry fitted his hand to its print again. This time the wood was smooth, almost warm to touch.

“I…” The contrast to the rest of the room was so stark, Harry didn’t know what to say.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Malfoy looked over-bright, like a flame using up all its fuel. He seemed to notice Harry looking at him with concern. He visibly reined in his reaction, affecting a more casual air as he gave Harry one of the condescending looks so familiar from the past. “I’ve been thinking,” Malfoy said, “and I’ve decided I might as well accept your help.”

“Thanks, I suppose.” Harry didn’t buy the snooty look at all; he could still see the fire in Malfoy’s eyes.

“Well, it occurred to me that you wouldn’t leave me alone, whatever I said.”

“I only want to help fix the room,” Harry said. “It’s not about you.” Even as he said it, he suspected it wasn’t true. Malfoy was just such an irritating mystery to him, he’d never been able to let that particular itch alone.

The look Malfoy gave him suggested that he too doubted Harry was being honest in his answer. Thankfully he dropped it though.

“Since last time,” Malfoy said, turning back to the door. “I’ve been thinking about what we can do, to try to fix the room.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know what exactly happened last time,” Malfoy said. “We could try shaking hands again, but I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”

Harry nodded; a similar thought had occurred to him. “We could try,” Harry said. “Even if only to rule it out.”

Malfoy paused, then held out his hand. It had been dark before, but now Harry could clearly see how pale Malfoy’s skin was, how thin and cold his fingers looked. When he gripped it, Malfoy’s hand felt fragile; it was as though it could disappear if he held too tightly. They shook once, and a shiver passed over Harry’s shoulders, a tightening that felt like a breath being held. He looked up, away from their joined hands to Malfoy’s grey eyes, a moment of surprise suspended between them. And then it was over, and both stepped back as though needing extra space.

Harry took a breath of the acrid air in the room, and looked around. No flashes, no changes.

“It wasn’t the same,” Malfoy said in a flat statement.

“It wasn’t,” Harry said. “It didn’t have that moment of… agreement.”

“No.” Malfoy was quiet for a moment. “I was thinking that maybe we need to… care for the room a bit.”

“Care?”

“Clear some of this stuff out of the way. Show it we care. It’s… wounded. It needs care.”

It was strange, hearing Malfoy talk about the room almost as though it were a person. That was normally Harry’s thing. It was rather as though Malfoy had stepped into his head.

“How about we try to clear some of the debris?” Harry said.

“There’s so much,” Malfoy said. “And there’s all this ash, too. I don’t know if we can simply Vanish it all.”

“When Neville was talking about the professors trying to fix the room in the summer, he said that they hadn’t been able to Vanish anything, how their magic seemed to peter out if they used it too much in the Room. How about we use brooms, sweep as much as we can into piles, then Vanish those?”

Malfoy looked around the room as though assessing how possible this was, then nodded. By unspoken agreement they both moved into the room in search of something they could Transfigure into a broom.

Once Harry had found a piece of twisted metal - whatever it had been was impossible to guess; the Fiendfyre really had obliterated everything it touched - Harry suddenly felt shy about performing magic in front of Malfoy. Apart from throwing curses at each other, they’d only ever done magic with each other in class, and this felt different. Harry remembered McGonagall Conjuring the table at the welcome feast; magic on that scale felt beyond him. He also remembered Neville saying that teachers had found it difficult to cast in the Room. Malfoy seemed to be hesitating too; he was holding a heavily charred panel, blackened and cracked, but had made no move to change it. They looked at each other, then both pointed their wands at their burnt objects. Harry concentrated on the broom he wanted to make.

Harry breathed out in relief when he saw his spell had worked. When he looked up, Malfoy was holding a broom in his hand that looked not too dissimilar to a racing broom, with crooked handle and pointed bristles. Harry’s on the other hand, was Muggle-style, with a long wide head and even bristles.

“What have you made, Potter?”

Malfoy sounded incredulous, and Harry realised that he had probably never seen a Muggle broom before. Harry felt his hackles rise. The thought of how different they were and every horrible thing Malfoy had ever said about Muggles in the past sat in him with a bloom of irritation, tinged with anger. 

A broom,” Harry said flatly. “I think Muggles know a thing or two about having to clean with their tools alone. I bet this one works better than yours.” 

“No need to be so touchy,” Malfoy said. “It looks strange, but if you feel it’s a superior Muggle design, then by all means use it.”

Harry resisted the urge to stick out his tongue or flip Mafloy a finger, partly because he wasn’t sure whether Malfoy was incapable of talking like in such a way, or if he was being annoying on purpose. They moved to opposite corners of the room, and began to sweep.

Although Harry had done his fair share of sweeping over the years - usually the kitchen floor, garden patio or drive at Privet Drive - this was on another scale entirely. Muggle or wizarding, the design of the broom seemed immaterial when there was so much to do.

Some pieces of fallen stone and twisted metal were too heavy to sweep, so Harry Vanished larger pieces as he went, and pushed others rather than swept. He was thankful for the dampness of the room as ash was swept into the air: most of it seemed to be heavy and sticky rather than fine and floating. As it was, the air was filled with a thin veil of floating whiteness, a dust that brought water to his eyes and burned his throat. Harry looked over at Malfoy, who had tied a handkerchief around his face, and wished he too had something to cover his mouth.

Malfoy, seeing him look, paused in his sweeping. He leant his broom against a wall, untied his handkerchief, and duplicated it with his wand. He handed the slightly grimy square of fabric over to Harry, who took it with a nod.

After an hour, Harry was mostly pushing rather than sweeping. He and Malfoy occasionally went to the glassless window for gulps of fresh air. Any November chill was forgotten in the heat and sweat of sweeping, pushing, moving.

“This room is too large,” Harry said, when one of their air breaks coincided. “We’ve been doing this for an hour and we’ve barely made a dent.”

Malfoy wiped his hand across a sweaty and streaked forehead. They were both, Harry realised, filthy.

“Let’s Vanish what we can.”

With relief Harry left his broom on the side. His hands were sore, and he suspected he’d have blisters to deal with. More than that though his chest, arms and back were all aching; he would be feeling the effects of this exertion for days to come.

Vanishing their piles of debris was definitely more satisfying than sweeping. They walked around the room Vanishing all the larger pieces of rubble.

“We should have done it this way round,” Harry said. “It’s much more fun.” 

“I don’t know,” Malfoy said. “I think we needed to get as much together as possible first.” He took aim at one of the piles he had made, and grinned as he Vanished it. “Plus I don’t think I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn’t done all that sweeping first.”

Harry was surprised. “I would have thought sweeping would be the last thing you’d want to do.”

“I remember when Mother told me what Muggles used brooms for. I must have been seven or eight years old, and she had just got me a new broom. I didn’t believe her at first! How silly to use a broom for cleaning when they are so much more fun for flying.”

Harry could imagine little Malfoy, sneering at the Muggles, all arrogance and prejudice. He remembered meeting that Malfoy in Madam Malkins, all those years ago. So much had happened since then - he certainly had changed, himself - but how changed was Malfoy, really? It was confusing seeing this more humble version of Malfoy.

“Why did you agree to sweeping today, then?” The question came out with more anger than he had intended, but the thought of Malfoy sneering filled him with an old, familiar anger. In that moment it felt as though they were standing miles apart, the distance between them unbridgeable.

“It seemed important,” Malfoy said. “And I’m not that boy anymore,” he added quietly.

Harry’s hands ached, feeling bruised where he had pushed against the broom, over and over again. He wanted to be able to trust Malfoy, wanted to believe what Malfoy said, but it was hard.

“Can you imagine 11-year-old me doing any of this?” Malfoy said, holding up his own blistered hands.

“No.” Harry sighed. “I can’t. And that’s what’s so… confusing about all of this.”

“You know I’ve changed, Potter,” Malfoy said, “You wouldn’t be here with me otherwise.” The distance between them shrank again.

Harry looked at Malfoy, pink and dishevelled, and knew it was true.

***

After another hour of hard sweeping, when they were both exhausted, and hot and sweaty to boot, they decided to call it a day.

“Potter.”

Harry stopped by the door. Malfoy was standing next to their two brooms.

“Thank you for saying you’d help. I… I think I’d still be walking around the room in the dark.”

“See you here on Saturday?” Harry said. “In the afternoon, after lunch. It’s always quiet then.”

Malfoy hesitated, and Harry wondered if he’d read the situation wrong, if Malfoy didn’t want him to come back. Malfoy nodded, and Harry offered him a small smile of relief.

“Great.”

Harry made his way back to the common room, bone-tired and confused about how he felt about Malfoy now. When Ron and Hermione saw him, filthy and tired Harry told them that he was helping clear one of the parts of the castle; this was technically true, and helped to explain the state of his clothes.

Malfoy had returned to the eighth-year rooms pink and clean, with no trace of soot or sweat on him. Harry was not sure how he had achieved this. Malfoy wouldn’t meet his eye, and Harry had no idea how to ask him. However much they had talked in the Room, in the common room it seemed they were back to their usual silence.

***

In Transfiguration they had moved on to making copies of a single playing card. Harry was trying to make his King of Hearts keep the same solemn expression, but he kept looking over at Malfoy who was concentrating fiercely, the tip of his tongue poking out of his lips. Some of the Kings Harry made were smiling; some were poking the tips of their tongues out from between their lips. 

Every time he moved his wand arm he was reminded of their time together; he had so many muscles that ached he wasn’t sure if there were any left that didn’t.

“It was alright when they used to make us Transfigure a mouse,” Hannah said. “No one cared how long the tail was or what colour the whiskers were, as long as it looked like a mouse. But having to make them all the same is a pain.” She giggled when she looked at Harry’s. “You’re not even trying.”

“It’s hard!”

“Wait until we get onto the Protean Charm itself.” She sighed. “We did it last year and I couldn’t ever get the hang of it.”

She pointed her wand at her original card, and then at the row of pebbles beside it. They transformed into playing cards - perfect copies, except they were all twice the size of the original. With a frustrated twist, she Vanished them. “I suppose I should thank you for bringing a full-on battle to school so I didn’t have to sit my exams.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know, Harry.”

Harry smiled, a little sheepishly. “Sorry. It… it’s strange talking about it.”

“You weren’t the only one involved. I think sometimes you need to remember that. We’ve all got our own stories. And we can make jokes, the world won’t end if we do.”

“You’re right.” This time it was Harry’s turn to sigh. “Doesn’t make this work any easier though.”

“Come on, you’re the hero of the wizarding world. What’s one measly little bit of Transfiguration to you?”

Harry turned back to his own work, and tried hard not to look up at Malfoy. His arms still ached, although his blisters had healed. He’d found a jar of healing ointment on his bedside table; he’d also noticed that Malfoy’s hands had healed quickly.

He glanced up once more. Malfoy had produced a neat line of playing cards, and still wouldn’t look his way. Harry sighed, rolled his head to relieve the ache in his shoulders, and had another go at his own cards.

This time the Kings all had pointy chins and noses. He started again.

***

When they arrived, the first thing they both did was look for any changes in the room. The windows were still unglazed, but the scorch marks had disappeared from the stone lintels, and the metal window frames were whole and untwisted.

“It’s working,” Malfoy said, sounding excited and putting his hand on the window sill.

“It’s working,” Harry repeated, putting his hand next to Malfoy’s. The stone felt as solid as anything else in the school. “It’s working!”

If it had been anyone other than Malfoy, he would have danced them across the room. As it was, he turned and smiled, and Malfoy smiled back. His face was transformed, and Harry realised he’d never really seen it like this before, in a smile that seemed to reach from ear to ear.

“Let’s get straight into it,” Malfoy said. “Sweeping and Vanishing.”

“Sweeping and Vanishing,” Harry said in agreement, echoing Malfoy’s words again.

“Are you going to copy everything I say?”

“I just—”

“I know,” Malfoy said. “If I don’t get a chance to poke at you a bit it doesn’t feel right.” He was still smiling, looking younger as a result. “Come on.”

As they stepped away from the window, their reflections looked back at them: the window was glazed again. They looked at each other in excitement, and practically raced to their brooms.

With a light heart Harry picked up his broom and began to sweep.

***

December continued much as November had, with darkness closing the days into a tight pattern of lessons then gathering around the fireplace in the common room, and working in the Room with Malfoy. Each time they noticed small signs of structural repair, although no more handprints, which spurred them to continue meeting. His feelings about Malfoy though were becoming more and more confusing.

One evening, the room lit by lamps and the fire, most of the eighth years were scattered around the room after dinner. The eighth-year rooms didn’t feel like home the way the Gryffindor tower had, but there was a ‘yet’ lingering at the end of the thought that surprised Harry. What surprised him more was the way that some of the house divides did seem to be lessening, if not disappearing entirely.

Harry was playing chess with Ron - aware, as always, of where Malfoy was in the room - when a loud whistle cut through the quiet chatter of the room, and it fell silent. He and Ron looked up to see Ernie staring over their heads.

“You, er, you look a bit different,” Ernie said. “What happened?”

They turned to see what he was looking at. Millicent was in the doorway leading to the girls’ rooms, her shoulder-length brown hair now close-cropped: she did indeed look completely different. 

Millicent spoke slowly, as though it were a stupid question to ask. “I cut my hair.”

It was shorter than Harry or Ron’s.

“It looks…”

Harry turned to see what Ernie said next. For some reason - maybe because she was a Slytherin and Harry was feeling sensitive to such things, or maybe because of Hermione being so fierce about accepting each other, Harry didn’t want to see Ernie being mean to Millicent at all.

Ernie seemed to realise that a few people were looking now. “It looks very, er, short.”

“I know,” Millicent said. “That’s the point. I decided I wanted to chop it all off, so I did.” She smiled, and her face lit up. “I love it; I feel more like me.” She tossed her head as though to show how much freer it was to move.

“Have you always wanted short hair?” Padma asked.

“Yes, but I wasn’t allowed before.” Millicent said. “My mother,” she added by way of explanation. “But who cares, now?”

“Your hair was, er, pretty before.” Parvati said. Her own hair was so long, Harry wondered if it was a bit shocking to her to see such short hair on a girl. “It’s quite a big change. What will your mother say?”

Millicent fixed her with a flat look. “I don’t really care.”

Harry wasn’t sure if he’d use the word pretty to describe it before, or to describe Millicent in general. Although actually, it did look much better now. She looked… strong, somehow. And yes, freer.

Malfoy sat silently in his corner, but had looked up from his book. Harry was aware of Malfoy’s gaze as it fell on him, as well as Millicent and Ernie. He felt a need to do something.

“I think it looks great,” Harry said, and ran a hand through his own hair. “How did you do it? It looks very neat.”

Millicent smiled at him, her pleasure at her new haircut and his compliment visible. Her broad face, now visible and not hidden, seemed open and warmer than Harry remembered it. “Thanks. I used a charm. And if you don’t me saying, Potter, maybe I could teach it to you. I don’t think I want to know how you cut your hair.”

Harry didn’t particularly want to share that often Mrs Weasley, or once, Ginny, took a pair of scissors to it. He’d never cared too much about how it looked, having long resigned himself to it being a bit of a crow’s nest.

Ernie guffawed, and then looked surprised with himself for having done so. “Sorry, Harry, but she’s right. You always look like you’ve just got out of bed.”

“If you manage to tame Harry’s hair, they’ll make you some kind of hero to the hero of the wizarding world,” Zabini said. “His stock will rise even more. Maybe they’d give you a medal, too.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Harry said, but then he saw the twinkle in Zabini’s eye and realised he was teasing them, and laughed.

“You’re only jealous because you’d like the medal for doing Harry’s hair,” Millicent said to Zabini. It amused Harry to see Zabini touch his own hair; he obviously thought a lot of his own skills. “Maybe you could help him with his clothes instead.”

Zabini laughed. “I don’t have the patience for that one.” Then he crossed the room to talk to Millicent more quietly, and watching the two of them talking as Zabini complimented her new look, Harry had an inkling that maybe life in Slytherin had meant friendships as well as back-stabbing.

He turned back to his game, and a grinning Ron. “Thanks for not mentioning about your mum,” Harry said quietly.

“Are you joking? She does my hair, too.”

Harry moved his knight, then sat back as Ron went silent to think about his next move. Things had changed since the beginning of term. He had noticed how Zabini and Milicent seemed… looser somehow. Less stiff than they had in September. Millicent was gradually dropping any expectations of how her family wanted to be, and Zabini spent less time hiding or looking in mirrors, and talked more in the common room.

It made Malfoy’s silence all the more noticeable. Harry snuck a glance over to the corner where Malfoy had once more stuck his nose in a book.

He had this feeling inside him, as though he were two people at once, or as though he was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, he was settling back into life as a student, and getting to know people like Millicent a little better. On the other he was meeting up with Malfoy and working on the Room together, but it never translated into talking to each other outside of the Room. He was seeing Malfoy grimy and sweaty and yet… outside of the room nothing had changed.

When he saw Malfoy like this, always in the background, always silent, it made Harry angry. He wasn’t sure why.

Maybe it was because the other Slytherins made an effort to socialise, to show their human side. He knew Malfoy wasn’t precisely the same as he had been before, and it irritated him that Malfoy wasn’t showing this new side of himself to the others.

At times, Malfoy’s silence and lack of activity made Harry want to go over to him and shake him into saying something, anything.

He went back to ignoring Malfoy, and returned to his game with Ron.

***

It had taken several weeks of working their way through the Room, but it was almost clear. The windows were now mostly glazed, although there were still enough empty panes for the Room to remain freezing. Harry wasn’t sure whether the changes were down to the care they showed the Room, as Malfoy called it, or the way they were working together.

Working, and talking.

“Do you remember the Room?” Harry asked. “How it used to look.”

Malfoy paused mid-Vanishing, and stared at Harry as though he were mad. “Do I remember the room that haunted my nightmares, where each day was a nightmare in itself? What do you think?”

“I mean do you remember the stuff that was in here? It was a treasure trove. All that hidden loot.”

“I didn’t look around that much,” Malfoy said. “I focused on the one thing I had to do.” He stretched his arms behind his back and rolled his shoulders. “Break?”

Harry nodded. He went to the space under one of the windows, where they took all their breaks in. Picking up the two mugs he had Conjured, he used his wand to fill them with water. Malfoy nodded when Harry handed one to him, wiping his brow with his handkerchief before taking the mug. His hair was darkened and damp with sweat, and tiny sweat beads were visible at the top of his forehead and on his nose. Harry looked away, wiping his own sweaty hands on his trousers and leaning against the rough stone wall.

“There was so much here.” He thought about the Half-Blood Prince’s Potions book. “So many students hiding the things they wanted to keep, or lose, or that were forbidden.”

“The Room of Hidden Things.”

“How did you find out about it?”

“I was looking for somewhere to hide.”

“You? Hide?”

Malfoy turned to Harry, his eyes steady and clear, as though he had a question he was asking. Whatever it was, it seemed to be answered because he looked away but answered. “My life was pretty awful after my father was seen to have failed the Dark Lord.”

Harry remembered white skin and dark shadows under Malfoy’s eyes. He remembered Malfoy crying.

“The Slytherins with Death Eaters connections shunned me, as my father was being shunned. But that wasn’t what made my life so terrible. Politics in Slytherin meant someone was usually being punished. There was a pecking order.” He shrugged. “It was just the way it was. I was used to being at the top.”

Harry snorted. “And didn’t we all know about it.”

Malfoy smiled sadly. “I think that I thought that if I said it enough it would stay true.” He sighed. “It doesn’t work like that though.”

“Doesn’t or didn’t?”

Malfoy paused before answering. “Who knows. The experience of being together this year has been very different to life in Slytherin. I didn’t know that Millicent knitted.”

“Hermione does, too,” Harry said. “She says it’s a very mathematical pastime. Plus she used to knit hats to try to free Hogwarts’ house-elves.”

Malfoy paused mid-sip. “I know she’s your friend but she has some very strange ideas.”

An old surge of anger rose briefly in Harry, but he was too bone-weary to take it further. Privately he’d always thought her a little barmy with her knitting, so it wasn’t as though Malfoy hadn’t said anything that was new to Harry. Still, Malfoy had said enough about her in the past for Harry’s hackles to rise a bit.

He looked at Malfoy, ruffled and soot-smeared, drinking his water, and decided he could be generous with this. “I think that’s the least offensive thing you’ve ever said about her.”

“The least offensive but not without offence?” Malfoy’s shoulders dropped. Harry should have known that Malfoy would understand the complexities. “What do I know about house-elves, anyway?”

Harry remembered that he had known a Malfoy house-elf. “Do you remember Dobby?”

“Yes. Father was so angry that you tricked him into freeing him.”

“And you?”

Malfoy stared into his mug for a while before answering. “During sixth year, and after, when we were trapped - in our house, in my allotted task, in our shame - I came to see it all differently. I… have you ever wondered why I didn’t tell my aunt it was you?”

Harry looked at Malfoy, not knowing what to say. Had he wondered? Yes, and no. Everything had been so much back then, he hadn’t had the space to think about it. And then at the trials it was enough to say what had happened. Malfoy had kept quiet then, sticking to the line that he hadn’t wanted to be part of the torture and the killing. And Harry could believe that, but he could also remember Malfoy stamping on his face and breaking his nose.

It was all confusing. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

“Because I wasn’t free to do anything. I hadn’t been… maybe ever. And in that moment I had the chance not to follow what they wanted.”

“And you wanted me to escape?”

“Yes. I wanted you to escape and I wanted you to fix it all. And you did.” Malfoy sounded fierce as he said this.

Harry could hear a defiance in his voice that he recognised from that day, but at the same time it sounded so different to both the arrogant Malfoy of the past, and the more subdued one of the present. He looked at him in surprise.

“But you asked about house-elves. I… I hated, for a while, how they so willingly followed orders. I thought of them as beneath me, like Muggles” - Malfoy held a hand up, and Harry knew these weren’t necessarily his views now - “but then I looked at them and I saw that I was no better, cravenly following orders. Except I didn’t enjoy it. So I do remember Dobby, and the fact that he wanted to be free filled me with hope. Because if a house-elf could long to be free, maybe it was something I could have, too? Even if only in one choice, one action.”

“I… thank you for helping me.” This felt different to the trials. The whole summer had been overwhelming: funerals, trials, rebuilding. Harry had been a little numb during the trials, saying as much as he thought was needed but longing for rest at the same time.

“Thank you, too, for giving me a chance to rebel, if only for a moment.”

Harry thought this over. “But I still don’t understand. If you wanted me to win, what happened back when the fire started? You seemed to want to hand me over to Voldemort by then.”

“I wanted my family to be OK. If that meant handing you over, then that’s what I was willing to do.”

“But you also wanted me to fix everything?”

“Things were more desperate by then. I thought…”

“You thought I wouldn’t win.”

“I couldn’t see how anyone could win. I lived with him in my home for months. Him and his snake. I…” Malfoy trailed off, and Harry noticed Malfoy was starting to breathe faster now, that his chest was rising and falling more rapidly.

He remembered what he had seen through his connection with Voldemort. It had been disturbing enough having those glimpses, what would it have been like to have lived it every day?

Not knowing what else to do, Harry reached out and touched Malfoy on the arm. Malfoy was trembling slightly. “It’s over now,” he said. “Voldemort is gone. Nagini is dead. And this room is…”

“Ours,” Malfoy said, “My chance to redeem myself. And yours to… do what, exactly?”

Harry kept his hand on Malfoy’s arm for a moment longer, and gave him a squeeze. After another beat, he felt the trembling subside a little, and let go. “Build, not destroy.” He sighed. “Maybe if we had been able to talk like this in the past, things wouldn’t have got as bad as they did.”

“Talking to me is your redemption?”

“You were a shit, for years,” Harry said. “But… we wound each other up, didn’t we?” He cast around for the right words. “When I found you in that bathroom, you were desperate, weren’t you? Maybe if I’d noticed that, rather than hurt you…”

“I tried to hurt you too.”

“You didn’t succeed.” Without meaning to, Harry’s eyes fell to Malfoy’s chest. “I did.”

Malfoy’s hand went to his chest, the fingers spread as though in protection.

“I hated you so much that day.”

“I know,” Harry said, so quietly it was almost a whisper. He’d never thought he was someone who could use his wand with so much hate. Or that he could hurt someone like that, even if he hadn’t known what the spell did. The fact he’d tried it without knowing still filled him with a kind of silent terror; there had been so much blood. “I don’t blame you.”

“Everyone thought you were so wonderful, yet I knew that you could do that. That you could attack like that.”

Harry was quiet. Now he could feel his own breath, feel how it was coming quicker, deeper than normal. His chest hurt.

“Was it bad?” Harry asked, “When I hurt you? I never… I never asked or checked.”

Without saying anything, Malfoy put down his mug and began to unbutton his shirt.

Harry watched, his own chest squeezing almost painfully.

Pale skin and pink nipples: it felt intimate enough seeing Malfoy reveal himself like this, but then Harry saw the silver lines on Malfoy’s chest. He reached as though to touch them, then paused. Malfoy didn’t move, his hands holding his shirt open, and his gaze direct. Slowly Harry’s hand inched forward, and then he touched Malfoy’s skin, his finger tracing one of the scars.

“It healed.” Malfoy said. Harry could feel his voice through his chest. “The scars itched for a while, but I don’t notice them now. I stayed in the hospital wing for three days.”

Harry thought to his own stays there, to having his bones regrown or falling off his broom. It was so strange that they’d both had time there, sometimes because of each other, but always separately.

“Sorry,” Harry said. “I was an idiot.” He withdrew his hand, and Malfoy turned away to rebutton his shirt.

“I would have loved to have heard you say that when I was younger,” Malfoy said. “As that’s what I thought of you, too.”

Harry laughed, despite himself, and soon Malfoy was joining in. The two of them laughed in their grimy corner, the tension of the moment before turning to something else.

“And now look at us.” Harry looked around the room, which was cleared of about two thirds of the larger pieces of debris. “Shall we continue? See if we can’t get the rest of the larger bits gone by the time it gets dark?”

“More of Hogwarts’ secrets Vanished away forever?”

“They are already burned to a crisp.”

“True.”

By the time the shadows had lengthened and the room was beginning to grow its own, they had finished clearing the room. Harry and Malfoy stood back to admire their handiwork.

“Next time I think we should find a way to scrub the room clean,” Harry said. “Get rid of the soot.” He wrinkled his nose. “Maybe make it smell a bit better in here.”

They left the room together. Neither noticed that one of the other windows was now fully glazed again, that only a few panes of glass were missing from the last window.

At the bottom of the stairs Malfoy turned left when Harry turned right. Thinking that it probably was best to not return together, Harry made his way back to the eighth-year rooms alone. As he walked he saw again in his mind’s eye Malfoy’s pale skin, his chest so clean when the rest of him was so dishevelled. The white scar lines rose and fell with Malfoy’s breath, and his fingertips remembered how warm and firm Malfoy’s chest had felt.

***

“Today I expect to see you have all mastered the first step: linking your original to your copies,” Professor Flitwick said. “Once this is complete, we will begin to apply charms in both directions, so that your original may transmit, so to say, and your copies receive.”

They had completed the Transfiguration tasks needed to learn the Protean Charm, and Professor Flitwick had taken over as their instructor in the charm. It had been a relief to get back to the challenges of switching and Untransfiguration with McGonagall, but Harry missed her clarity when it came to explaining magic. It still seemed overly complicated to Harry, but then he was more a fan of simple, single-step magic.

“Clear as mud,” Ron muttered from beside Harry.

“Shh.” Hermione had her quill poised above her parchment. Harry didn’t understand how she could still be taking notes. After all, she could already perform the Protean Charm. When he’d asked her she’d told him that there were aspects of theory that Flitwick brought up that might be relevant in their exams. The whole thing made Harry’s head hurt.

On Harry’s other side, Hannah giggled. Harry was enjoying working with her, and they’d agreed to stay paired up for Flitwick’s part of their lessons, too.

When it came to the practical part of the lesson, Harry got out his small bag of marbles. When they had moved from Transfiguring copies to also Conjuring them, they had all been tasked with coming up with their own objects to copy, and he had chosen a Muggle marble. He hadn’t told anyone this, but the original was one of his few possessions that had come with him from childhood. He’d found it on the street one day on the way home from school, a brilliant swirl of blue and green running through it, tiny air bubbles trapped forever in the glass, and little pocks on its surface from much usage. He’d loved it, and hidden it in his pocket before Dudley saw it, or Petunia noticed that he’d stopped walking. In his cupboard at night he would hold it up to the light from the single bulb; it was one of the only beautiful things he owned, and he had considered it one of his treasures for years.

The copies were ones he had Conjured, opting for this rather than Transfiguring stones. Harry had felt proud of himself for that, and he had to admit it had helped him hone his Conjuring skills to be more precise.

Flitwick had shown them the charm and the wandwork needed to connect the original to the copies in the last lesson. McGonagall’s insistence on a perfect copy made sense; Harry finally managed to connect his up, and when he held his original near the copies was aware of a faint buzz of magic tying them together.

“Ooh Harry, you’ve done a good job with that,” Hannah said.

Hannah’s object was a small enamelled pin of a plant and a sun, with the words ‘We all need a little light to grow’ written around its edges. She was still working on connecting hers up, and he gave her a few pointers on how to hold her wand. It felt for a moment as though they were back in the DA; he enjoyed teaching others.

Flitwick stopped the class to explain the two charms needed to complete the Protean Charm. “Remember that this charm changes the _appearance_ of your objects, both originals and copies. Do not attempt to change the overall mass or form! You will know you have succeeded when your copies change to match the originals. Oh, and be warned that they may heat in the process.”

Anthony put his hand up. “How do we stop the charm?”

“A good question, Anthony. The charm should last until you change your original back. This will happen anyway, eventually, but it might take weeks. It can be halted at a time of your choosing with a simple _Finite_ or _Offero_.” He cleared his throat. “Can anyone tell me why this won’t cancel the entire Protean Charm?”

Hannah raised her hand as well as Hermione, which surprised Harry, as she, like him, often preferred sitting back in class. “Is it because of all the layers we’ve created? Making copies, the connecting charm, and then the double-charm of the Protean Charm itself?”

“Yes. Five points— Oh, I mean yes, excellent answer.” The eighth years got credit towards their NEWTs rather than house points, but the professors often forgot this. Flitwick beamed, and stepped off his small box. The class took this as their cue to return to their charmwork.

“I think I get it,” Hannah said to Harry. She sounded pleased, and more confident than she had before.

Five minutes later she proved she had got it, by handing Harry one of her copies and showing him that she could change the words to ‘I’m a plant and I like eating bugs’. The pin warmed in his hand as it changed, and he laughed as he saw the look of delight on her face.

Five more minutes in, and it became clear that Harry, however, couldn’t get the spells to stick. His initial glow at helping Hannah quickly wore off as he struggled to make any progress himself. He could make the original marble change - he made the ribbons inside change colour, and curl into the word ‘boo’, but the copies stubbornly stayed the same.

“You need to go back a step,” Hannah said.

“I’m trying,” Harry said. But by the end of the lesson, he was irritated enough by his lack of success to hurl his marbles into their bag. He hadn’t felt this frustrated by a task since… since trying to persuade Malfoy that they should work together. As he often did, at the thought of Malfoy he looked up to find him in the room. Malfoy looked calm and unruffled. For some reason this irritated Harry even more.

“You’ll get it,” Hannah said, “You just need a bit of practice.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Harry said. He didn’t feel much like talking about it. “I guess I’ll have to do that.” Maybe Hermione would help him. This wasn’t the same as copying homework, was it? Harry sighed, and packed up the rest of his things a bit more gently. He was sure he’d get the hang of it soon.

***

The sheer physical labour of cleaning the Room helped Harry forget all about Charms and homework. His arms ached and his hair was entirely wet with sweat, but seeing the soot clear away made it all worthwhile. A hot shower would be most welcome, though. With some wistfulness, Harry remembered when the Room could provide whatever was needed.

“It used to have a bathroom.”

“Hmm? Malfoy looked up from where he was aiming a jet of water from the end of his wand. The scrubbing brushes on the floor kept working round in circles.

“The Room, it used to have a bathroom. When Neville and the others hid out in here, it… I don’t know, grew a bathroom.”

Malfoy sighed. “That would be good. Not just… the conveniences—”

Harry snorted at Malfoy’s prissy use of language.

Malfoy ignored him. “But also a proper bathroom. With a shower and a bath, and no need to walk through the school first.”

Although they had cleared the entire space now, it still left a scarred, burned shell of a room. The walls and floors were scorched, black with soot and grime. Between the two of them they’d worked out that if they Charmed some scrubbing brushes using Mrs Weasley’s washing up charms - Harry was tickled pink that Malfoy now knew them - and one poured water from his wand while the other Vanished the pools of dirty water, they could slowly work on scrubbing the room clean.

“How do you always appear so clean, you know, back in the eighth-year rooms?” Harry asked. For some reason he had an image of Malfoy having to wash himself while Myrtle spied from a sink. In the image Malfoy was as he was in sixth year, slighter, more hollow-looking.

“I don’t know how you traipse around the castle, dirty and stinking after we finish.”

“I wash when I get back. I have a nice long shower.”

“It’s easier the way I do it.”

“Which is?”

Malfoy gave a smug smile. “Prefects' bathroom. It’s only two floors down, and no one ever seems to come this way. You won’t ever have been but—”

“That huge bath! All those knobs!”

“How do you know about that? Is there any rule you haven’t broken in this school?”

“You always talk about me like I’m some troublemaker—”

“You aren’t?”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that, because he had broken a lot of rules. They were breaking one together this time though, being in a room that was out of bounds. He Vanished the growing pool of water between them.

“We both are,” Harry said. “Wait a second, how do you get in? You’re not a prefect anymore.”

Malfoy smirked. “Once a prefect—”

“Bollocks.” He was pretty sure they set a new password each year. “The password will have changed since then.”

“Oh, OK.” Malfoy held his hands up. “I hid and waited until I heard one of the prefects go in so I could hear the password.”

“That sounds more like you.”

“Come on, you’ve got to admit it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t know—”

Malfoy flicked his wand up, soaking Harry in the process and cutting him off.

“You’re wet now,” Malfoy said. His voice was calm, but there was a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

Harry glared at him. “You bas—”

“You can’t go back to the eighth-year rooms looking like that.”

“I can dry off before I go back.”

“Or you can come to the Prefects' bathroom with me.”

Harry froze.

He remembered the Prefects' bathroom, and unbidden he had a mental picture of Malfoy, clean skin flushed pink with warmth, and surrounded by bubbles. For some reason this image was so unsettling, it robbed Harry of the ability to speak for a few moments.

“I… er… I…”

“Oh don’t be so stupid about it,” Malfoy said. “Is this about going together?” He sounded incredulous. “We already share a bathroom. And it’s no worse than showers after Quidditch, just a lot more comfortable.”

And with more bubbles, Harry thought. He couldn’t shake the picture of Malfoy surrounded by piles of fluffy bubbles. He was being silly, he knew, and shook his head to try to clear it. He and Malfoy already spent so much time together, why not this too?

Malfoy’s face fell. “Or is it because it’s a bathroom? I’m not going to Hex you this time.”

“It’s not that,” Harry said. “I was just… surprised, that’s all. And wet.” His wet clothes were chilling in the cold room. Whatever heat he’d generated through hard work was fast dissipating.

“So will you come?”

“I…” Harry shivered. He couldn’t think of a single reason not to, no matter how hard he tried. He sighed. “OK then.”

“I’ll take that resoundingly enthusiastic response as the best you can do. Perhaps it’s just the thought of having to tame some of your scruffiness,” Malfoy said.

Harry wasn’t sure when Malfoy insulting him had lost the ability to rile him. This didn’t feel like the old days, though. Malfoy was smiling, something Harry struggled to remember seeing him do so freely. And Harry didn’t look at him with hate anymore. Things were… changing.

***

Myrtle, thankfully, stayed away. Perhaps she had made new friends from the lower years, or maybe she remembered the last time she had spied on them both, but Harry was grateful not to see her appear.

Once they’d got into the room, an awkward silence descended. Malfoy ran a couple of the taps, and just as Harry had imagined, a fluffy mass of bubbles began to build.

“Bubbles?” Harry asked, trying to puncture the tight feeling in his chest by teasing Malfoy. It didn’t work.

“It would be a waste not to use all the extras this room has to offer.”

Harry was determined to show Malfoy that he wasn’t funny about this, after all. After a deep, almost painful breath to fortify himself, he shucked off his filthy clothes. When he got to his underwear, though, he hesitated.

“Scared, Potter?”

The familiar words were enough to get Harry over the last hurdle.

He stood in the steamy Prefects’ bathroom, completely naked, and glared at Malfoy. Malfoy looked him up and down, and it took every bit of Harry’s strength not to react, not to hide himself or run away. Without breaking eye contact, Malfoy started removing his own clothes.

Why was the room so hot?

Malfoy didn’t hesitate when he got to his underwear, but kept going. His movements were fluid and relaxed, his limbs lithe and long. Harry wondered what it had been like in Slytherin, if they’d all walked round starkers half the time. Malfoy’s body, Harry couldn’t help but notice, was pink all over. There were the pale scars on his chest, and there, lower was… everything else. He’d never looked at another man this… carefully, before. Harry felt his focus zoom in, and his insides lurched. He swallowed.

Any thoughts of what it meant to be reacting like this evaporated when Malfoy moved slightly, and Harry caught sight instead of Malfoy’s left arm. Harry hadn’t been looking for it, hadn’t even thought of it, but there on Malfoy’s inner forearm was the faded curve of a snake and a skull.

When their eyes met again, Malfoy’s eyes were wary, although that dangerous gleam was still there. It was as though Malfoy was shouting a challenge at him, but was scared of what Harry might do.

“You have it,” Harry said, his voice sounded loud in the echoey room. “You always cover it up.”

Malfoy looked down at his arm, then back up at Harry. “Does this change anything?”

Harry thought about the weeks they’d spent cleaning, about Malfoy using Molly’s scrubbing spells. He thought about how quiet Malfoy was with the others, and how Harry wanted to shake him out of it sometimes. He thought, too, about pink skin and the strange stirring inside of him at the sight of Malfoy’s naked body, and he decided.

“No.”

Without saying anything, Malfoy turned away, displaying his rather neat posterior, then ran and leapt into the bath, balling his body up as he did so. A large wave of water splashed up, running onto the tiled floor.

Malfoy emerged, his hair dripping and slicked back. For a moment, Harry was reminded of the eleven-year-old boy he’d first met.

“What are you waiting for?” Malfoy said.

What was he waiting for? Harry was aware of the churning inside of him, but it wasn’t about the Dark Mark. He’d always known Malfoy must have it - why else hide his arms? Seeing it didn’t change anything, because… everything had already changed.

Harry, taking his cue from Malfoy, ran and jumped into the bath. Heat enveloped him, a warmth that seemed to penetrate skin and muscle so that when Harry swam to join Malfoy, it was as though he’d left the strangeness of the moment out by the side of the bath.

He dipped his head under the water again. This time when he came up he saw Malfoy’s eyes, bright and insistent, and he smiled.

In a great release of energy, they splashed, chased, shouted, shoved, and laughed. It was with reluctance that Harry checked the time, and realised that it had all taken so much time - the cleaning of the Room, and then the cleaning of themselves - and it was nearly time for dinner.

“We need to go back,” Harry said, as they both leant into the underwater jets of water that Malfoy had turned on; the water jiggled him, and he felt just as shaken up on the inside, too.

“It’s been…”

“It’s been fun,” Harry said. “You were right, this is a much better way to get clean.”

He washed his hair as Malfoy got out, but half-watched as Malfoy spelled their clothes clean - he was a lot better at it than Harry. Although they did have to get to dinner, they dressed slowly, without the hurry of before. It was as though they were both trying to make the moment last, as though neither was quite ready for it to end.

This time, they did walk back to the Great Hall together.

When they walked through the door, Harry was ready to face his friends, to walk in talking to Malfoy. To show that they were friends.

In the end, no one saw them walk in together. They were swallowed up in the stream of other students also rushing in eager not to miss the start of dinner, and then Professor Slughorn stopped Malfoy before they could reach their table to ask him a question. Harry’s heart, which had been burbling up high in his chest, dropped like a stone. Hermione barely looked up as he sat down beside her, and when he looked back at Malfoy, still stuck with Professor Slughorn, the way Malfoy’s shoulders looked, tightly set, seemed to Harry to suggest a kind of disappointment, too.

Later, when they were brushing their teeth along with Zabini and Anthony, Harry glanced over to Malfoy at his sink more than once. The silk of his pyjamas floated along every line of his body, and now he had seen it, Harry could imagine exactly what was underneath. It seemed unreal that it had only been earlier that same day. Malfoy kept his eyes on his own reflection in the mirror, but Harry still felt as though he were being looked at, too. His scruffy - Malfoy had been right to use the word to describe him - t-shirt and shorts were nothing like silk pyjamas. What did Malfoy see, when he looked at Harry?

Harry climbed into bed, pushing his feet under the cold covers, hyper-aware of Malfoy in the bed beside him. As Harry lay back, his head full of long limbs, bright eyes, and a very neat arse, Harry worried that maybe it hadn’t been disappointment he’d sensed in Malfoy. Maybe it had been relief.

***

The morning of the last day of term, Ernie brought a bottle of Firewhisky out from his trunk, and announced that they were all having a party.

“Tonight?” Anthony said, He was already packing his trunk. Harry, along with Ron, were going to do their usual last minute chuck-everything-in style of packing.

Harry saw Malfoy shudder at the word ‘party’, and scowled at him: Malfoy was always so quiet around the others, maybe what he needed was a chance to loosen up a bit. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at Harry, and held his gaze before seeming to realise where he was, then turned away abruptly. It was the most interaction they’d ever had in front of the others, and suddenly Harry felt nervous.

What was he nervous for? When they’d come into the Hall the other day, he’d wanted his friends to see him with Malfoy, to see that they were friends.

He saw again pink skin and bubbles, and closed his eyes as though that would help shut out the sight. Maybe it wasn’t him _talking_ to Malfoy he was nervous about his friends finding out about.

No one, though, seemed to have noticed.

***

Hermione, much to everyone’s surprise, had agreed to set up some charms so as not to disturb Madam Pince. Other students had brought various bottles of drink out from their trunks. Padma set up her Wizarding Wireless, and the common room seemed transformed by knowing they wouldn’t be overheard, and having music in the background.

Hannah told Harry that she and the other girls in her room often had a drink at night. Somehow, from Hannah, this shocked him, but she gave him a wolfish grin and told him not to worry about it.

As the party progressed, with drinking, some snogging (Lisa and Anthony again, who seemed to have a snog-when-drunk arrangement), and a lot of laughing, Harry found himself alone in a corner. He was content to watch the others. He smiled at their jokes, but didn’t feel like joining in with the gentle and not-so-gentle ribbing going on; he was distracted, and he knew it. But then, it had been such a strange term in so many ways. For one there was this odd group of people that were coming together. Hermione was laughing with Daphne, Ernie and Anthony were talking to Zabini. Susan had her back to all the Slytherins; she - along with Lavender and Parvati - never spoke to them. 

A trembling, fluttery feeling rose up from within Harry before he’d even started thinking about the one Slytherin who was most on his mind, the other strange thing about the term: Malfoy. When he’d started he hadn’t thought he’d become sort-of friends with Malfoy. Harry closed his eyes, saw Malfoy pink and naked again. The shaky feeling intensified. He couldn’t deny that something had changed for him. The image was seared onto his retinas; he thought he probably could see it even when he wasn’t thinking about the Prefects’ bathroom, or about Malfoy in general. He could be doing his homework or talking to one of the others, but it was always there.

When he opened his eyes, Malfoy was on the other side of the room watching him.

The breath caught in Harry’s throat. Malfoy wasn’t glancing, or pretending to stare into space, or hiding his attention; he was looking, directly, at Harry. Even if Harry had wanted to move in that moment, he would not have been able to.

Harry’s skin felt tight, and his mouth was dry. There was not enough air in the room. Under Malfoy’s direct gaze, Harry felt… naked.

And then Millicent came to sit with Malfoy, and his attention turned away from Harry, and it felt as though the lights in the room had all dimmed at once. He wanted it back: he wanted Malfoy’s eyes on him again.

He was, he realised, fucked. Whatever his weird old obsession with Malfoy had been, it was in the middle of tipping into something larger, something that unnerved Harry in a way he wasn’t quite ready to name.

After a couple of long, deep breaths, Harry forced himself to turn away from where he could see Malfoy. Instead, he tried to listen to the long and involved conversation Neville and Zabini were having about plants.

He was aware though, that Malfoy was still there. This wasn’t a problem that was going to go away just because he was looking in the other direction.

Maybe it was good that he would be away over the Christmas break. He needed some time. He was probably overtired, that was all. A longing came over him, for being looked after and sleeping in, for the chatter of the Weasleys around the table. Whatever this strange thing was with Malfoy, right now what he needed was a chance to rest. Malfoy could wait until they came back.

With this resolution to steady him, Harry took a drink and made an effort to join in a bit more.

He would find a way through. He always did, in the end.


	2. Spring

Christmas at the Burrow had been everything Harry had ever wanted: warm, comfortable, and reassuring, with the message over and over again that he was part of a family. How could he not be, after everything they had been through? His tie to Ron and Hermione would endure his whole life, he knew it, felt it in his bones. It was reassuring to be reminded that this extended to the wider Weasley family, too.

When he’d arrived at the Burrow with Ron and greeted Molly and Arthur, he’d seen clearly how they’d always welcomed him. It wasn’t exactly a jolly Christmas, but it had been special. They had talked about Fred, told stories about his childhood escapades and laughed until they cried. They had simply cried, too. Molly had hugged Percy tightly when he walked in; she had lost one son but another had returned to her. And amongst all this, Harry was surprised to realise that he did have a space. They’d been offering it for years, but it was only now he could take it.

It hadn’t been as awkward with Ginny as he’d feared, either. It had felt natural somehow to slip back into more of a friendly, sibling-like relationship with her. Memories of kissing her, of the feverish attachment he’d felt to her, seemed more like a dream than anything else.

She squished up with him on the sofa, and he understood that he didn’t want to put his arm around her anymore. He also understood that the memory of the time they had spent together had softened; it was no longer touched with the pain of the break up in the same way. The truth was, they were both happier not being together.

Coming back to school had felt different. He felt rested in a way he hadn’t after the summer. He had a family.

The strange thoughts and feelings he’d had about Malfoy he kept locked down tight. The Burrow didn’t seem the place to let them out, and although it had been good not to have Malfoy in his every waking thought, he hadn’t had much control over his dreams. On the way back to Hogwarts a tingling sensation crept along his skin both at the thought of being able to dwell a little more on what it all meant, and also on what it would be like to see Malfoy again. Would they go back to ignoring each other in front of others, or was that direct stare at the party a sign that things were changing?

***

On the first Thursday of term, Harry made his way to the Room, wanting to see how it was, but also hoping that Malfoy would have had the same idea.

Cold, flat January light filled the Room. Somehow now there was nothing left to clean, and the windows were all sealed, it felt cold and empty.

It wasn’t empty though. Ignoring the rest of the room, Harry focused all his attention on the tall, slim person standing at the far end of the room.

Malfoy turned when he heard Harry come in.

“You came,” Malfoy said. “I know we hadn’t arranged anything, but I…”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

He stood, uncertain of what to do next. He had been half-expecting to pick up where they had left off, staring at each other across the common room, but instead there was an awkward standing-around kind of silence. No matter how much Harry wanted to stare at Malfoy, to see whether the confused feelings were something he had imagined, he couldn’t bring himself to look directly.

It was safest, Harry decided, to keep to what they needed to do next to fix the room.

“What do we do next?” Harry asked. “How are we going to fix the Room? It’s still not right. It might be cleaner and less smelly, but it’s not…” He wiggled his fingers to show magic.

Malfoy rolled his eyes at Harry’s finger wiggling, and Harry grinned: Malfoy always hated it when he reduced magic to such things.

“It needs something more,” Malfoy said, “but I don’t know what.” Malfoy ran his hand along a wall. He spoke softly, “What do you need?”

A shiver ran up Harry’s back at the tenderness in Malfoy’s voice. He’d never heard it like that before. “Are you talking to the Room?”

“Why not?” Malfoy looked up, but kept his hand resting gently on the wall. “It’s not like we have any other answers.”

Harry came to join Malfoy, and put his hand beside Malfoy’s. “O mighty room, tell us what to do.”

“Don’t take the piss.” Malfoy scowled.

“Sorry.” Harry took his hand off the wall. He felt awkward now; Malfoy had been serious and he had been silly. He didn’t want to think about why. “How was your Christmas?”

Malfoy went still, and the space between his shoulders seemed to shrink. “Fine. It was fine.”

Harry thought to his own Christmas, to being in a house full of life in all its variety. He couldn’t imagine Malfoy’s family being anything like that.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Pry? Judge?” Malfoy’s shoulders sagged. “Who am I kidding? It was… whatever you imagine is probably true.” He looked up at Harry. “My mother barely spoke to me. Father is in Azkaban. It was… I’m happier here.”

“Oh. Um, sorry to hear that.” Harry felt they were veering too close to dangerous territory, and he didn’t want Malfoy’s parents coming into the space they’d made, together, in the Room. However different their Christmases had been, now they were together again - even without knowing what to do next - there was a sense of excitement, in what could be.

“I, er, it’s good to be back, too,” Harry said.

Malfoy was still looking at him.

Harry felt he needed to be saying something more but he didn’t know what. The fluttering feeling growing in his chest as Malfoy looked at him wasn’t helping; he felt off balance. He cleared his throat.

“You don’t have to say that to make me feel better,” Malfoy said. “I am fine.”

Harry suspected this wasn’t true.

“I didn’t say it to make you feel better. I said it because it is good to be back. Even if I don’t have a clue what to do next. In here, that is.”

“And not-in-here?”

Harry shrugged, trying to appear calm. He wanted to know what this fluttering feeling was, wanted to know what his late-night thoughts about Malfoy meant, but there was no way he was saying any of that aloud. He tried to focus on school instead. “Take some space. Get my NEWTs.” He laughed, with a little bitterness. “Some days that feels pretty hard.”

“You worry about getting your NEWTs?” Malfoy looked surprised.

“Some days.” Harry sighed. Some days it was hard to concentrate, hard to make the dots connect. “I don’t know why, but I’m finding some things tricky. And then if we move on from them in class, I have to practise it on my own.”

“I thought you were supposed to be some sort of super wizard.”

“With a cape?” Harry laughed but Malfoy’s face remained blank. “Sorry, that’s a Muggle thing,” Harry said. “Besides, you’ve been at school with me for years. You know I’m not great at everything.”

Malfoy looked thoughtful. “I’ve seen you be lazy, slapdash, and lean heavily on Granger. I don’t know if that means you can’t do everything.”

Harry wasn’t sure whether he’d just been insulted or complimented. Maybe both.

“You manage fine though, don’t you?”

Malfoy nodded. “Yes, because I work hard. As I always have.”

Harry gritted his teeth. Malfoy was as capable of being as much of a git as ever. It made the fledgling idea he’d had even harder to articulate.

The silence between them grew. Malfoy went to stand by the window, his hands on the sill as he looked out onto the cool grey day, while Harry paced restlessly.

“Look,” Harry said, once he’d completed a tour of the room, “while we’re waiting for inspiration to strike, or the room to answer or whatever… I was wondering if…”

Malfoy turned quickly towards him, his hand falling to his side. “Yes?”

Harry shuffled on his feet. “It’s… the Protean Charm. I… I was wondering if you could help me with it.”

“Oh.” Malfoy folded his arms.

“Yeah,” Harry said, pressing on despite the way his heart was beating faster, adding to his general unsettled feeling. He already knew he found it hard to ask for help, and asking Malfoy in particular was more difficult than he’d thought it would be. “Would you… could you help me, practise that is?”

“You want me to help you with your homework? What do I look like, Granger?”

An image of Malfoy, his hair as gloriously frizzy as Hermione’s sprang to mind. “You wish: you’d never achieve her level of hair, Malfoy, and you know it.”

Malfoy looked startled, and Harry worried he’d gone too far. “As if I’d want to.” Malfoy patted his own hair. It was bright and shiny; without all the wax or whatever it was he’d put in it, it held a natural bounce. Harry wondered briefly what it smelled like. Malfoy shook his head. “You’ve been struggling with that charm for weeks, haven’t you? I’ve seen you in class. Why didn’t you ask for help sooner? From Flitwick, or Granger, if not from me?”

“I… it’s complicated.” Frustration rose up in Harry, tying knots in his chest as it went. “Everyone thinks I'm this hero. First years stop talking when I come near. And here I am, unable to do a charm everyone else has cracked!”

“Luckily I’m no first year with a crush on you.”

Something in the air changed as Malfoy said the words. Harry found himself blushing, and although he told himself he didn’t know why, he did: he had been thinking of Malfoy, late at night, in a way that was new to him. He looked away from Malfoy.

“I don’t think of you like that.”

“No.”

The silence in the room was loud.

“So… will you help me?” Harry ventured.

Malfoy paused, a mix of feelings travelling across his face. Harry didn’t know what any of them meant. “I can’t see how I can say no to you. At least it will give us something to do.”

Harry had hoped that Malfoy would say yes, but he was still relieved to actually hear it. “Great, thanks,” he said. He came to stand next to Malfoy, and the two of them looked out onto the misty, drizzled-soaked grounds. The fluttering, heart-beating, frustrated restlessness within him eased as they rested their hands on the cool stone sill, side by side.

The sound of their breathing was the only sound in the room, and they stood for long enough that Harry was aware of the thud of his blood in his veins, too. After all the rushing to lessons, talking to other people, it was good to simply be quiet with another person.

The room, which had seemed so dead and empty, now felt different. It felt as though it were waiting.

***

The next time they met, he brought his bag of marbles to practise on. They went to sit in their usual spot, by the windows. The room, though now sealed from draughts, was still colder than the rest of the castle. Thin January light flooded through the windows, and the room was quiet.

Before they sat down, though, Harry noticed something had changed. “The window!” Harry ran his hand along the window sill. Where he and Malfoy had been standing the last time they came, there were now two hand prints, side-by-side, just like there were on the back of the door.

“It happened again,” said Malfoy.

“When you said you’d help me. It must have been then, because these weren’t here before.”

“First us working together…” Malfoy said.

“Then you helping me,” Harry finished.

They looked at each other in wonder. Malfoy’s eyes were as pale and light as the sky outside, Harry noticed, but clearer.

Malfoy cleared his throat. “I guess we should do it, then.” His cheeks coloured. “I mean, I should get on with helping you. Do you have your… what are they, Gobstones?”

“Marbles,” Harry said. “They’re Muggle. Made of glass. They won’t spurt anything horrible at you.”

“I should hope not,” Malfoy said, although he still held himself back as though suspicious they would. “How far did you get with them?”

“I’ll show you.” Harry sat down again, taking the marble bag from his pocket.

Malfoy patted his hand print, then came to sit beside Harry. He looked through Harry’s collection of copied marbles, taking several out to examine them carefully.

“These copies all look identical, you did a good job with them.”

Harry felt almost betrayed by how warm and quick the flush of pride was in response to this praise. Why should it matter to him what Malfoy thought of his work? And yet, it did.

“Let’s just use two: the original and a copy,” Malfoy said.

Harry pulled the original marble from his pocket, where he’d put it to keep it separate from the rest. “It’s this one.”

Malfoy picked one of the marbles from the bag. “OK. So how do you want to change this?”

“I was thinking the colour of the stripes, maybe the form they take.” Harry had imagined them writhing, snake-like, to form words or simple pictures.

“Try, just with the original.”

Harry picked up the bashed marble, the one that had been his treasure for so many lonely years. He looked at it, and concentrated on picturing the intertwined blue and green glass at its core untwisting. He closed his eyes, and whispered the transformation incantation. When he opened them, the blue and green had untwisted, and extended outwards like branches instead.

Malfoy was watching intently, his top lip slightly sucked into his mouth and a pinkness in his cheeks.

“You can do that bit of the magic,” he said. He blinked, then frowned. “So what is your problem with the charm?”

“It’s the actual linking part of the charm,” Harry said. “Or I think it is. I can get the original to change, and change back, but I can’t connect the copies.” He held the marble on his hand, and whispered the incantation to end the transformation. The marble returned to its original state.

“Show me how you do it,” Malfoy said.

Harry was aware of how intensely Malfoy was looking at him. His heart sped up as he was reminded, all of a sudden, of Malfoy looking at him across the room at the party. Except now they were sitting, cross-legged on the floor and close enough that they could touch. His wand trembled in his hand for a moment as he held it up, ready to cast the first part of the Protean Charm.

He put the original marble on the floor. Light from the window made it seem to glow, and blue-green light fell through it onto the stone.

Harry made the wand movements, and said the words. All the while, Malfoy watched him intently, his attention shared between Harry’s wand, his mouth forming the words, and the marble.

“That looks OK,” Malfoy said. “Let me see the second bit.”

Harry turned his attention onto the bag of marbles, spreading them on the floor beside their bag. He took a deep breath before starting the second incantation.

“Stop!”

Harry stopped mid-word.

“What?”

Malfoy had reached out his hand, as though to grab Harry’s wand hand. “You missed out a syllable, and your grip… you look like you’re about to drop your wand.”

Harry didn’t want to say that usually his grip was better, that it was Malfoy’s proximity that was distracting him. “Which part am I missing? And what about how I’m holding my wand?”

“It’s easier if I show you,” Malfoy said. He pulled out his wand and held it up. “You’re holding it like this.” He made an exaggerated shake of his wand, the wood balancing precariously in his hand. “Hold it more like this,” he said, moving his hand along the wand shaft so it was better balanced. “But you should already know this.”

“Sometimes when I’m focusing on one thing - like remembering the words - my concentration slides in another area,” Harry said.

“Figures,” Malfoy said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You look like you’re always thinking about half a dozen things at once,” Malfoy said. “Look at your hair. It can’t even decide which way to point.” He shuffled closer - leading to a corresponding rise in Harry’s heart rate - and leaned into Harry so he could ruffle his hair. “See,” he said quietly, “a complete mess.”

Harry could feel the brush of Malfoy’s breath on him as he said the words, and shivered. His heart, already speeding, leapt as Malfoy closed his hand over Harry’s. A moment later he held it up into the air, and Harry realised that Malfoy was showing him how to move his wand for the spell. He tried to focus on the way Malfoy was moving his hand, but it was really hard when he could feel the warmth of Malfoy’s body next to his own.

Malfoy smelt like wood, like trees, Harry realised.

“I… I think I’ve got it,” Harry said, his voice cracking slightly as he moved away. He took several breaths, aware now of the slight hint of woodiness as well as the acrid lingering smell of fire in the room.

Malfoy pulled some parchment and a quill out of a pocket.

“I thought Hermione was the only one who carried parchment with her.”

“And I think you must be the only student who doesn’t.”

Harry couldn’t imagine Ron did, or Ernie, but said nothing.

Malfoy was leaning forward now, had already opened a jar of ink and was writing something on the parchment. It was, Harry saw, each part of the Protean Charm written out syllable by syllable. Malfoy’s handwriting was much like him: neat, tall, fluid.

Once his heart had settled a little - Malfoy having moved to a safer distance helped - Harry ran through the words to both connecting steps of the Protean Charm again.

“Much better,” Malfoy said, and much to his annoyance Harry felt that glow of pride swell inside him again.

Calmer, more certain of the words, and hoping to wing the wand movements, Harry tried the double charm again.

“Almost,” Malfoy said. He drew his own wand out again, showed Harry the wand movements. This time Harry copied them as carefully as he had rehearsed the words before.

One more time Harry attempted the charm.

This time he didn’t need to look at Malfoy to know that it had worked; he felt a lifting sensation at the end of his wand, as though the linking of the objects had tipped his wand up.

“Potter,” Malfoy whispered. “Look.”

“I know, I can feel it worked.”

“No, not that. Look behind you.”

Harry turned. It took a moment to see what Malfoy had seen. Tendrils spread from the window, out across the wall. White lines grew like clinging vines across the old stones.

“What happened?”

“It was when you linked the glass balls—”

“Marbles.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “When you linked them, the walls, those lines… they _grew_.

“Like the door. But… was it you helping me, or was it me doing the charm?”

“It looked like it was… when you did the magic.”

“It didn’t do that while we were Vanishing, or scrubbing the floors.”

“We could try to work out what kind of magic works.”

“ _If_ any kind of magic works.”

“Finish the charm,” Malfoy said. “Make all your morbles—”

“Marbles.”

Malfoy wave aside the correction. “Make them all change, using the Protean Charm.”

Harry nodded, his fingers prickling with excitement as he held his original on his hand and pointed his wand at it. He pictured the green and blue changing again, unfurling as they had done before. Again he whispered the incantation, and this time his wand felt heavier for a moment; it felt as though he were casting the spell six times over.

He opened his eyes to see seven identical marbles, one in his hand and six on the floor, all with their swirls opened out, pressed to the surface of the glass.

Malfoy grabbed his arm. “Harry,” he said.

Harry, so shocked at Malfoy saying his given name, almost dropped the marble. But then he looked up, and saw that the tendrils now reached almost halfway across the room. As he watched, he saw them spreading, like a yawn, across the room.

“You called me Harry.”

“The Room!” Malfoy said. “Did you see that?”

“I saw it,” Harry said. “And you called me Harry.”

Malfoy looked down at his hand, then seemed to realise what he was doing and let go of him. “It was the shock,” he said quickly. “Potter.”

Secretly, Harry had quite liked being called Harry, but he had no idea how to say this; they had been calling each other Malfoy and Potter for months, for years now. Asking to hear his name on Malfoy’s lips seemed more… intimate. It brought to mind pink skin and bubbles, so Harry bundled it away for later consideration.

As he worked on his Protean Charm though, he sometimes stole a glance over at Malfoy and wished… wished the distance between them was a little less. Malfoy moved his arms more when he was excited, and his eyes seemed brighter. Even though they were sitting apart again, Harry’s body remembered Malfoy’s warmth and his woody scent. He felt a small thrill at the back of his neck each time he remembered how his name had sounded when Malfoy had said it.

They spent the next half hour with Harry changing the patterns inside his marbles, and watching the white lines spread further and further around the room, a glorious twisting along and up the walls.

***

As he lay in bed that night, images from the day replayed in Harry’s head. He’d pulled the curtains closed around him, the thick fabric the best defence against Ron’s snores, but also against what felt like the prying eyes of others. Harry worried, sometimes, that his thoughts must be written all over his face. He shuddered at the memory of Snape rifling through his thoughts; his worries were not necessarily unfounded in a world where magic existed.

Images raced through his mind: twisting stone lines growing and stretching, the changing shapes of blue and green glass, all interspersed with Malfoy’s bright eyes, Malfoy’s hand on his arm, Malfoy calling him ‘Harry’.

Harry had left the Room without any of the soot and grime of the previous term, but a part of him wished he hadn’t. There was no denying that splashing around in the Prefects’ bathroom had been… exciting.

In these most private moments Harry knew that part of what made his heart race and his whole body feel hot wasn’t breaking the rules or sneaking around. But… Malfoy. Harry’s brain always seemed to shut down a little at this point. Was it Malfoy, or would any lean long body and heat-pinked skin do it? Why was this all coming up now? Surely he was old enough to know who he was attracted to, who he liked? He needed time to work all of this out.

He could hear the sound of his name on Malfoy’s lips, and still smell his woody heat. A stirring in his pyjamas told him more than he wanted to know about the effect of this all. Malfoy, or men? Or was this all some strange magical side-effect, a dream-like intimacy that would fade in the light of the day?

Harry snuck a hand into his pyjamas, and told himself he wasn’t thinking about Malfoy, that it was only that Malfoy was the person who was there while Harry worked out what he really liked. Plus, it had been a full, stimulating day, and he simply needed some… release.

***

Harry had a favourite chair, tucked in the corner and with a good view of the common room. A shadow fell across his parchment, but he didn’t look up. He was trying to do his Potions homework, and he hoped that whoever it was would sit down and pull out their own homework, without wanting to talk. It had taken ages for him to stop thinking about Malfoy and concentrate instead on ten prohibited combinations and the principles behind them. They sat down, but there was no pulling out of books or unrolling of parchment. He glanced over: it was Millicent, and she was looking at him. Harry sighed as he finished his sentence and waited for her to speak.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

Harry looked up. He noticed now that Millicent had also brought him a cup of tea, which she slid over to him. He appreciated the gesture - he never said no to a cup of tea - but from Millicent it was suspicious, because she never usually made him cups of tea.

“Thank you,” he said. “But what’s this in aid of? I can’t help but think that you’re trying to butter me up.”

“Maybe.”

“Go on, then.”

“It’s Blaise.”

Harry looked over to where Zabini - Blaise - was sitting to one side, trying to pretend that he wasn’t watching Harry and Millicent.

“Has he sent you over?”

Millicent nodded. “I told him he was being a wimp. He wants to talk to you.”

“What does he think I’m going to do? I don’t bite, you know.”

“You might.”

“Millicent.”

“Right. He is being very mysterious about this, but he wants to talk to you, and asked me to ask you if he could.”

“This is ridiculous, but OK. I will talk to him, and I promise not to bite him.”

Millicent nodded at Blaise, then turned back to Harry. “Wait for him after Herbology tomorrow.”

“OK then.”

“Thanks.” She got up, and went to talk to Blaise. With one more glance in Harry’s direction they left the common room together.

Harry had no idea what any of that was about, but at least he’d got a cup of tea out of it.

He was only halfway through both his list of contraindicated herbal combinations, and his tea, when Susan had come to sit next to him.

“You sure you should be drinking that?” she said.

A hot, squeezing sensation settled over Harry’s chest, and he put down his mug, but not before taking one more sip. “Hello, Susan. Why would you say that?” He had a horrible feeling he knew exactly why she had said it, and it was making him feel shaky.

“How do you know she didn’t put something in there?”

“Like what?” The shaky feeling was growing into something closer to anger, but Harry tried to keep his temper under control. Susan was suspicious of the Slytherins, but Harry could understand why. He made an attempt to keep things light. “She doesn’t seem the type of person to go for Amortentia.” Harry picked up his tea and sniffed it. “Smells like tea to me.”

“Bet it’s horrible.”

“It’s a cup of tea,” Harry said, feeling tired. “I like tea, it was a nice thing to do.”

Susan screwed her face up. “I’m just finding this hard, this pretending nothing happened.”

He got it, he really did. A lot had happened, in school and out. But… Harry didn’t want it to determine the rest of his life. He didn’t stand a chance if all he would ever be was Harry Potter, the hero. Maybe the world needed fewer heroes and villains, and a bit more… kindness.

Harry reached out a hand and covered hers. “I know. It is hard, but we need to find a way to live together.”

“Surely you understand.”

“I do. And I don’t think we’re really pretending that nothing has happened. It has happened. We’ve all been changed by it. I think maybe we all react a bit differently. Some of us want to forget, some want to have hugs and comfort, others of us go into ourselves, and some of us want to have fun.”

“You’ve changed,” Susan said, after a few seconds when she was silent, her brow furrowed.

“I have?”

She nodded. “You’re always so serious now.”

Harry was surprised to hear this. He didn’t think of himself as serious. He spent a fair amount of time thinking about things, and sometimes he felt sad, but he also talked to his friends and went to the pub and secretly thought about what it was like to splash water at Malfoy.

She was looking at him as though to say, _see there you go being serious again_.

“Do you really think so?” Harry asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re serious, too.”

“I was always serious.”

“Now you’re serious and angry.”

She shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I am, sometimes. Other times I’m sad. And I guess whatever looks like serious to you,” he added. “Will you think about what I said?”

“Will you think about what _I_ said?” she shot back.

Harry sighed. “I think part of why it was worth it, all the heartache and the loss, was so that people could have the chance to change, to be better versions of themselves.”

She gave him a hard, blank look. “The point, Harry, was for people to stop being killed.”

“I know that,” said Harry quietly. He tried to put some of his sadness, guilt, anger, and regret into his words; he wanted her to hear him. “I carried that with me every day, I promise you. I still do.”

She was silent for a while. “Sorry,” she said in the end. “I know you do.”

“I think maybe… maybe it’s OK if it takes us all different amounts of time to find a way to live with this. It’s all still very recent.”

“It’s good to hear that,” Susan said. “It feels like everyone else is rushing on, trying to forget. I’m still trying to deal with what happened. I need time, and I wish I didn’t have to do it with _them_ here.”

“Can I ask you something?” Harry said, pushing his homework away and picking up his tea instead. He’d given up all hope of getting it done now.

She nodded.

“Why did you come back, if you didn’t want to see reminders?”

“Why shouldn’t I? It’s my space, too.”

“It is, it is.” He sighed. For a moment they had seemed to connect, but maybe he’d said the wrong thing again. “Have you talked to anyone here about this? Other than me?”

“Hannah, a bit. She understands in a way, because of her mum.”

“I think Ron might too.”

She nodded.

“What about Madam Pince? She said she was available for us.”

Susan looked thoughtful. “Maybe.”

In the end Harry made Susan a cup of tea, and himself another one. Ron and Hermione came to join them, and they talked about it all, a bit. Not everything there was to say perhaps, but a start.

Susan was right: not everything could be rushed, and the complicated feelings left by everything they had been through deserved time.

***

Harry worked through his own very complicated feelings in his own way, which was why he kept meeting up with Malfoy in the Room of Requirement. The fact that Malfoy was now heading up his very own branch of complications in Harry’s head was either part of a bigger problem, or somehow the solution to it all. Harry hadn’t worked out which, yet.

“I was thinking.” Malfoy looked younger somehow, and it took Harry a moment to work out that it was because Malfoy was shy.

“Yes?”

“You learned how to do the Protean Charm. Practising it helped, right?”

“It did,” Harry said. “You helped, thank you.” He still had the marbles in his pocket, because he wanted to show Hannah when he had the chance. He knew she’d be pleased for him.

“Well… it seems that doing magic in here - learning magic - seems to help the Room.”

“We can’t be certain that’s what it is,” said Harry. So much of the Room was still a mystery to him, which at least felt familiar because so much was strange for him now.

“Look around you,” Malfoy said. “It’s not like nothing happened in here.”

The thin, climbing lines covered two thirds of the room now.

“I know,” Harry said. He waited, as there was clearly more that Malfoy wanted to say. Plus it was fun to see him squirm a bit with his unasked question.

“I want to… I was wondering if you could help me with… the Patronus Charm.”

“Oh,” Harry said. He’d taught so many people to do that charm, in the very room they were standing in. It seemed so much more open and light now. Hopeful, too, somehow. “I could do that. You know, I taught a lot of the DA—”

“I know,” said Malfoy, cutting him off.

How much did those who hadn’t been in the DA know about what they were doing? People must have talked about it since. It was probably in _Hogwarts, a History_ by now. Harry hadn’t really considered how strange it was that, although they had been at school together for so many years, their experiences were so different.

He had wondered if Malfoy would ask him about help with something, but he hadn’t guessed it would be this; the Patronus Charm wasn’t even on the NEWT syllabus.

“I was always a bit envious of the people you’d taught it to. My father forbade me from even trying to learn it. But I… I’ve tried the charm on my own, and I can’t get as much as a wisp from my wand.”

“He stopped you from doing it? Why?”

“He was more interested in… Darker magic. He thought that was more powerful.”

Harry shuddered at the thought of Lucius Malfoy pushing his son towards Dark magic.

“But you tried anyway,” Harry said. He was quiet for a moment as he thought about it. “I used to think you followed your father in everything.”

“I did, for a long time. But then… as I got older, I wondered sometimes if there might be another way to live.” Malfoy sighed, heavily. “I wasn’t really supposed to have any thoughts of my own.”

“Maybe… it might be different now,” Harry said. “For a start, you need to have happy thoughts.” Harry couldn’t imagine Malfoy having happy thoughts when he was younger, but he must have done: about having lots of sweets, or being better than other people. In Harry’s experience those kinds of memories never really helped in casting a Patronus.

He looked up at Malfoy, who was still looking sad as he dwelled on the past.

“I can help you with it, next time we meet,” Harry said, deciding as he said it. “It would be a pleasure.”

Malfoy flushed, much as Harry had when Malfoy had praised him the week before.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

A flash of light made them both look up.

The white lines were swelling, growing thicker.

A smile lit Malfoy’s face, and he looked young again, but in a way that took Harry’s breath away. For a moment - a single, fleeting moment - Harry could imagine how Malfoy might have been if his parents hadn’t been so… morally compromised. He saw excitement in Malfoy’s face, and it reignited something that ran deep in Harry: excitement about magic. He felt again the fire that had been lit within him when he had first come into this world. Harry felt young, too, free of all the horrible things that had happened, free to be excited by the wonder of seeing magic.

Malfoy went to touch the white stone vines growing across the walls, and Harry watched him with all of the excited, warm feelings swirling about his insides.

Not Malfoy. _Draco_ , Harry said to himself, the thought rising up out of the tumbling and stirring thoughts and feelings.

Draco.

He needed time to get used to thinking of Malfoy as Draco. But looking at Malfoy smiling up at the walls, he realised he wanted to.

***

“The Patronus is… well it’s hope, and happiness, and the chance that things can always get better.”

The memories Harry drew on were not of teaching the charm to the DA, but of his own lessons with Lupin. His heart ached - a familiar, brief, gentle pain - for that time in his life, a time when he had Lupin and Sirius. As with much of the past it was a tangle of joy and sadness.

“No wonder I couldn’t do it before,” said Malfoy, a little glumly.

“That was before,” Harry said. What Harry could glean of Malfoy’s life before Voldemort’s fall was pretty miserable. “Things are different now.”

Malfoy held his gaze. “They are,” he said.

The silence between them grew, like the white tendrils on the wall: twisting, twining, reaching out.

“Um,” Harry said. He swallowed. This - whatever 'this' was - between them filled Harry with a kind of terrified excitement, and he wondered if Malfoy also had this rising butterfly feeling through his centre. Was it happiness? It felt too scary to be happiness.

Malfoy’s eyes were still on him. He needed to say something. “So… think about your happiest thought. Focus on how it felt. The incantation is _Expecto Patronum_.”

Malfoy nodded. He held his wand aloft, and closed his eyes. His mouth became a thin line, and there was a pause before he said, “ _Expecto Patronum_!”

A thin wisp of white, like the trail of smoke left when a candle was blown out, followed the tip of his wand as he moved it through the air.

“Did you see that?” Malfoy said, his voice rising in excitement.

“Yes,” said Harry. Around them the walls pulsated with light again as new tendrils climbed over old. “And so did the Room.”

The walls were beginning to look like a white forest, with tree limbs growing up to the ceiling, meeting in sinuous and organic arches.

When Harry looked back to Malfoy’s face, he saw hope and happiness. And he knew, deep down in his bones, that Malfoy would master the Patronus. The clear-eyed look of wonder as Malfoy smiled back at him was all he needed to know.

“Now try it again, find another even happier memory, and this time try to cast out rather than move your wand through the air.” Harry illustrated the movement with his own wand.

Malfoy watched Harry’s wand. As he cast again, his eyes flicked to Harry, and Harry wondered what he’d chosen for his memory. This time the wisp he produced was slightly more substantial than the last. Behind him white stone stretched and twisted up the walls.

They continued practising, and the white tendrils continued to spread, but the first ones to have appeared were also growing thicker.

“Have you noticed,” Malfoy said when they’d had enough and were sharing some water sitting on the floor under their window, “How when the Room changes there’s a… a sort of flash of light?”

Harry nodded. “With a rainbow edge. And the flashes only come when we are collaborating or one of us is learning.”

Malfoy leant back into the stonework. “It’s not so cold in here.”

Harry hadn’t felt cold in the room at all while Malfoy was practising the Patronus. He had thought that maybe it was due to excitement, or something to do with being near Malfoy. Putting down his water, he held his hand out, and took a moment to notice how the air felt.

“You’re right! I think… I think the room is beginning to be able to warm itself again.”

“I wonder what happens next?” Malfoy said.

“Maybe it depends how long it takes you to be able to cast a Patronus.”

“You think I will?” Malfoy gave him the clear look again, the one that made Harry feel as though there was no distance at all between them.

“I do,” said Harry. “Your wisp is getting bigger, and brighter.”

Malfoy closed his eyes and smiled.

That sat in a companionable silence, under the stone boughs and buds they had helped grow together.

***

“Welcome.” McGonagall fixed them all with her steely gaze, softened slightly by the small smile that quirked her lips. “I would like to remind you that although this is an additional class, once you have committed to being here I expect you all to turn up every week, and to practise between classes. I hope that as well as learning, you will have the chance to think about what using magic in this way will mean to you after you leave Hogwarts. I also hope that you have fun with magic.”

She turned her wand on herself, and they watched as her hair turned purple, then brightened until it was a neon pink. With an additional flourish of her wand, her hair disappeared from the sides of her head, instead springing out into the tall spikes of a Mohican.

However much it was a surprise to see McGonagall like this - his first reaction was a sort of half laugh, half gasp - Harry also felt almost tearful, a kind of tugging sadness that came from somewhere inside of him. He was reminded, he realised, of Tonks. He saw again her smiling face, changing her hair colour over the dinner table.

“For our self-Transfiguration classes we will begin with smaller changes that can be easily reversed. It is essential that you master the skills needed to reverse self-Transfiguration before we move onto anything more difficult. Today we will change our hair colour.”

It was hard to follow what McGonagall was saying with her hair like that; each time she moved her head, the whole class followed the movement of her hair.

Thankfully at this point McGonagall returned her hair to its normal tight black bun.

Harry swallowed down the lump in his throat. Tonks was gone, but how cool was it that he could learn to make his own hair pink like hers? The thought that he too could learn to change his hair opened up other possibilities. Surely this would help if he became an Auror, or even if he wanted to change his appearance so that he could have a bit of anonymity?

Excited now, Harry leant forward in his seat to pay extra attention to her instructions.  
“This charm, and its counter, are both easier to perform on someone else than it is on oneself. First you will practise in pairs on each other, and then individually in front of a mirror.”

She explained both charm and counter-charm, and then left the students to pair up. Harry, still writing down the incantations, took longer than normal to stand with a partner. When he looked up everyone was paired up, except for one person left standing in the middle of the room, alone.

Malfoy.

Malfoy was watching Harry, almost as though waiting to see what Harry did.

McGonagall, too, was watching. “I trust this is not going to be a problem, boys?” she said.

“No,” Harry said, “not at all.”

Malfoy shook his head, and Harry saw that he might look serious, but there was a smile hidden in his eyes.

It wasn’t a problem to work with Malfoy. The opposite: Harry hoped his happiness wasn’t too transparently written on his own face. He was accustomed to working with Malfoy, and had a good feel for his magic.

Pointing his wand at Malfoy, and turning his hair a triumphant Gryffindor - or perhaps Weasley - red delighted the Harry that had endured years of sneering and snobbery from Malfoy. Along with Malfoy’s own pleased smile as he retaliated with a brilliant Slytherin green for Harry, it seemed to Harry that the past and the present were overlapping, but with the sting of hurt removed.

“You look like Ron’s weedy cousin,” Harry said. Ron turned at the mention of his name.

“Go back far enough and that’s exactly what I am,” Malfoy said.

A vision of the huge tapestry in Grimmauld Place flashed into Harry’s mind. There had been a Weasley on the Black family tree somewhere, but Harry couldn’t remember the exact relationship to Ron.

“Don’t say that,” Ron said, staring at Malfoy’s red hair. “Mum will be inviting him over for lunch and trying to feed him roast potatoes before you know it. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

A strange thrill passed through Harry at the idea of Malfoy at a Weasley Sunday lunch. Malfoy with _his_ family.

“Your mother wouldn’t invite me,” Malfoy said quietly. He took a deep breath, and stepped forward, still red-haired. “I have been very rude about your family in the past, Weasley. I have been a horrible snob and a bully, and I’m sorry.”

The rest of the class had fallen quiet, Harry noticed.

Ron’s face had always shown his feelings - often the broad admiration he had carried for years for Hermione - as clearly as his freckles. The old hurt was there, the old shame that Malfoy had needled so mercilessly, about his family’s relative poverty. It mingled, as it ever had, with his pride in his family. And then Ron’s face settled into something different, something Harry had only seen since Ron had pulled Gryffindor’s sword from a cold pond.

“Thank you,” Ron said. “You were a git. But I think we’re both more than we were back then. So. If my mum decides you are a long lost Weasley and invites you to lunch one day, I think… I think I would be able to live with it.”

It wasn’t the past and the present without the sting in it after all. It was something new entirely. Sometimes Harry forgot how much Ron had been forced to grow up, to face his insecurities and rise beyond them.

Malfoy nodded at Ron.

“Come on, class,” McGonagall said, interrupting the following silence. “Back to work.”

As everyone turned away, Harry saw her watching Ron with a shine in her eye that hadn’t been there before, and a smile on her face. She caught his eye, and smiled at him, too. He smiled back.

***

When Harry came out of Herbology, Zabini was waiting for him. The greenhouses had been warm, and when Harry walked into the cold January air he pulled his coat closer.

Zabini stood back until the other students had streamed past. They both stood for a moment, their breath white on the air, and Harry rubbing his gloved hands together.

“You wanted to speak to me?” Harry wondered again why this couldn’t have been done in the warmth of their common room, or even the bedroom they shared with the others.

“Yes.”

“It’s cold out here,” Harry said. “Could we get on with it?”

“We can walk and talk,” Zabini said.

Fresh snow lay beyond the paths back into the castle, so they stuck to the path down to the woods, which had also been cleared - presumably for Care of Magical Creatures students.

“What is this about?” Although Harry thought it was probably something harmless, the build-up - and the fact they were walking away from the school - was making him a little tense. Susan’s doom and gloom worries didn’t help much, either. Harry had to remind himself that he spent a lot of his time making beautiful magic with the baddest Slytherin of them all, and that was fine so why should this be any different?

The thought occurred to him, quick as a flash, that maybe Zabini _knew_ about him and Malfoy, about the hours they spent together, and the Prefects’ bathroom, and the thoughts and feelings Harry kept so carefully locked away.

“The thing is… well first of all I want to apologise. I haven’t always been the best of people.”

“You’ve not been the worst.”

Zabini flashed him a tight smile. “Thanks, I suppose.”

Harry persisted. “I don’t think you’ve got much to apologise for.”

“I’ve been… snooty about some things. My views… I went along with things my mother said, with how we talked in Slytherin. It… it was easier to dismiss people because of their families than see who they really were.”

“You and the rest of your House.”

“I know. But… I do have my own brain, I could have worked out that it wasn’t all true.”

“Maybe. It’s a lot to go against though, isn’t it? Your friends, your family.”

Zabini looked at him as though he’d grown tentacles from his head. “You are being awfully understanding about this.” He still looked nervous though.

Harry shrugged. “We’ve all had to do a lot of growing up.”

“In the moments when I did think for myself, there was something, someone—” Zabini broke off.

“Someone?”

“Someone I thought had qualities that were… worth something. But I had to ignore what I’d noticed, because it didn’t fit in with how other people talked about them.” Zabini’s walking pace slowed as he said this.

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“You and Ginny Weasley,” Zabini said. “I wasn’t sure, so thought it best to ask: is it over? Between you two, I mean. The papers have had so much in them, it’s hard to know what’s true.”

Zabini’s change of topic confused Harry.

“What exactly are we talking about here?” Harry said. “And you know that most of what’s written about me is absolute rubbish.”

Zabini stopped walking entirely, and gave Harry an appraising stare. “I wanted to… I don’t want to be going behind anyone’s back, or find myself vaporised when I’m sleeping or brushing my teeth.” He looked nervous.

“What is it?” Harry asked, thoroughly confused. Before Zabini could answer though, the dawning of an idea formed in Harry’s mind. “Is this… something to do with Ginny?”

Zabini nodded. “I’ve… fancied her for a while. But it was always impossible: there was how people talked about her family, then she was with you. Now though, now I don’t know.” He thrust his hands deep into his pockets.

“Oh.” Harry needed a moment to process this, and they started walking again. Zabini stayed silent, but every now and then he glanced over at Harry.

This wasn’t about him and Malfoy at all. Zabini didn’t know any of his secrets; Zabini had thought he and Ginny might still be together.

Zabini _fancied_ Ginny. Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

“You… like her?” Harry said.

Zabini nodded.

“You do know I’m not her keeper, right?” Harry thought he better answer Zabini’s question. It was strange the thought of him and Ginny being together: it felt as though it happened a long time ago. “As it happens we aren’t together, no.”

“I wasn’t sure, you go off sometimes, you could be with her.”

So Zabini hadn’t noticed that it was Malfoy Harry was spending time with.

“I'm not sure what to think about all this,” Harry said. “Like I said, I’m not her keeper. Maybe she could like you, maybe not. Maybe she’d rather play Quidditch. Either way… it’s for you to find out, not me.”

“Oh, I wasn’t asking you to find out!” Zabini sounded panicked.

“I won’t mention it to her. But I mean that… well, you don’t need to ask my permission if you do want to ask her out, or whatever.” Harry paused. “As long as you don’t hurt her of course.”

“And I know you’re not her keeper. Only… you vaporised the scariest, most murderous wizard of our age. You do understand why I might be… nervous, right?”

Harry sighed. “I didn’t exactly vaporise him.”

“Well, he’s not here anymore. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry said, as though his defeating Voldemort had anything to with some background Slytherin he’d barely registered until now. He immediately felt a low wave of shame at how mean this thought was. It had been for Blaise; it had been for everyone. They all deserved to live in a world free from murderous nose-less bastards.

“Next time we go to the pub,” Harry said. “You should come.”

“You’re inviting me to the pub?”

“Yes.” Harry couldn’t quite believe it, either. Was he really helping set Zabini up with his ex-girlfriend? No, he realised, he wasn’t. He was simply giving Zabini a chance. Ginny was perfectly capable of making her own mind up about who she liked.

He _was_ giving his permission, though, whatever he’d said to Zabini. For what? He looked over at Zabini, who was shuffling his feet in the snow. For Zabini to prove himself? To court Ginny? Or maybe it was his own heart he was giving permission to move on.

“Thanks,” said Zabini, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Harry.”

“Er,” Harry took a second to realise what he had to say next. “It’s OK, Blaise.”

They walked back to the castle in silence, Zabini - Blaise - with a stupid smile on his face, while Harry mulled over what it would have been like if instead of being asked about his ex, he had been quizzed over Malfoy. What would it be like, what would it mean, to have his innermost, confused, feelings thrust into the open? He truly did not know.

He envied Zabini, in a way, being able to ask about Ginny so openly. But then again, how long had Zabini liked her, and at what point had he been able to admit it to himself? Had he hidden it, even from himself, just because of what other people said about her and her family? The parallels to whatever was happening with him and Malfoy didn’t need a genius to point out, but Harry’s mind still slid past them, unwilling to dwell too long on what it meant for his own feelings, or who he was.

***

Harry, Ron and Hermione crowded into George’s tiny kitchen. The windows were steamed up and the whole room was like a furnace, but it made a welcome change to the dismal February weather outside. By the time they had arrived they were cold and damp; the morning’s drizzle had managed to find its way past their Umbrella Charms.

“They never ran Animagus classes for us,” George said. “I think they were scared of what we would have got up to if we could have transformed ourselves.”

“Did you try, anyway?”

“What do you think? Of course we did.”

“You did?” Ron said.

“Unregistered.” George grinned a little sheepishly. “We were going to get registered, but then the shop was so busy, and the war and then…” His face fell. “It’s not the same, without him.”

Ron reached out and touched his hand, and George smiled sadly at him. “I miss him, too.”

“I know,” George said. He sighed deeply and stared ahead of him.

“It’s OK,” said Ron. “Maybe I can stay after the others go back?”

“That would be good,” said George. He seemed to shake himself out of his reverie; he focused back on the three of them, although the sadness in his eyes remained. “Sorry, I invited you all for lunch, not for a pity party.”

“It’s lucky your roast potatoes are nearly as good as mum’s,” Ron said. “We wouldn’t come otherwise, you know.”

George shook his head. “You better not let her hear you say that.”

Ron snorted. “I’m not an idiot.”

“What did you transform into?” Hermione asked. “If you don’t mind telling us.”

“I’ll show you after lunch,” George said. “It’s been a while but I should remember how.”

Hermione looked alarmed. “Should?”

He laughed. “It’s like flying a broom. You never forget.”

“Do you think we can learn by the end of the year?” Harry asked, curious.

“Depends,” George said. “It’s tricky, self-transformation. You need to have a solid idea of who you are, so you can always change back.”

Harry, Ron and Hermione exchanged glances. “Er,” said Harry, “surely after 18 years we know who we are already?”

“By know, I mean…” George paused. “It’s about knowing your body, where the edges of it are, how tall you feel, what the back of your head looks like, things like that. But it’s also about knowing what it feels like to be you. It was one of the trickiest things - after working out what animal came easiest to transform into, and knowing how _that_ felt - knowing your own feelings. Properly. Honestly.”

Alarm threaded through Harry. How did he feel? Did it include the confusing feelings he had about a certain former-Slytherin all naked and covered in bubbles? He didn’t even know what that made him. He didn’t want to say the words to himself, not yet. It was all too scary to be throwing around big words that would determine how he saw himself, let alone how others saw him.

“It sounds like a lot of work,” Hermione said. She sounded excited, because who else would want more work? Harry on the other hand, found the whole thing pretty overwhelming.

“Let’s eat,” George said. “We can have some of my nearly-as-good-as-mum’s roast potatoes, and the rest. After pudding I’ll show you.”

“You made pudding?”

George smiled. “What’s a roast lunch without pudding after?”

Harry sank into the warm familiarity of it all: the kitchen, the food, the company. Whatever else might be true of him, he knew that this part was also true: this was his family.

***

After Ron’s second helping of apple crumble, and after Harry and Hermione had helped George by washing up - he’d never admit he’d perfected some of these spells by scrubbing floors with Draco Malfoy - they all retired to George’s tiny living room. The three of them squashed onto George’s sofa, while he stood on his armchair, and raised his arms theatrically.

“Prepare to be amazed!”

Harry smiled; George would never be able to fully quell his need to entertain others.

A look of intense concentration crossed George’s face. He squeezed his mouth into a small shape, frowned, and closed his eyes.

And then he began to change, in lots of ways all at once. He shrank, and grew fur; between one breath and another he had gone from being a man standing on the seat of an armchair to a small, fluffy, ginger cat.

Hermione laughed, then stopped herself by clamping her hand over her mouth.

A plaintive _miaow_ came from the armchair.

“A kitten?” Ron said. “Seriously?”

Hermione still had her hand over her mouth, and looked faintly mortified at the hoot of laughter that had come out when George transformed.

The kitten - George, jumped down from the armchair and trotted across the floor, then leapt up onto Ron’s lap. Ron immediately began to pet the cat, stroking its fur and cooing at it.

George started purring, and stretched out and yawned, showing his tiny pink tongue and sharp teeth.

He dug his claws into Ron’s lap, then jumped on Harry’s. His fur was short and warm, and Harry smiled as he stroked him, too.

“I get why you’re a ginger cat,” Hermione said, “But a kitten?”

George made a half-yelp-half-miaow sound, then jumped down and transformed back into the fully-grown man that he was.

“It surprised us, too,” he said. His voice sounded deep and gruff after his little kitten miaows. “But then we realised: do you have any idea how much mischief kittens can get away with? There was a time when we were setting up the shop, and all our money was going into it, when half the shopkeepers of Diagon Alley kept us fed for a month.”

He smiled, and there was something… pointed and feline about his mouth for a moment. It disappeared as quickly as Harry had noticed it.

“You… you were so cute!” Ron said, sounding a little surprised, and almost angry.

“Bet you’d forgive me anything, Ronnikins, if I purred and sat on your lap.”

“I guess it said something about your maturity level that you turned into a baby animal,” Ron said. And then he began to laugh. “A kitten! I was picturing something cool like a… like a tiger or a hawk."

“I didn’t realise that Animagus transformations could be into an animal of a different maturity than the witch or wizard,” Hermione said.

“Depends how mature they were to start with,” George said. But then he sighed, and the twinkle in his eye faded a little. “It’s not as much fun as it was with Fred,” he said. “I… I wasn’t sure whether I wouldn’t transform into an adult cat this time.”

“You’re still you,” Ron said softly, having calmed down instantly when George mentioned Fred.

“Thanks,” George said.

Hermione had a few more questions to ask, and they sat back with their drinks and found out more about George and Fred’s experience of learning to become Animagi. Harry and Hermione left for some window shopping, leaving Ron some time alone with his brother.

On the way back to Hogwarts, Ron was quiet as Harry and Hermione talked it all over.

“He said his name,” Ron said, in a lull in their talking.

“Who did?” Harry said, but Hermione was quicker than him.

“George,” she said. Harry suspected that she squeezed Ron’s hand at this point. “You’re right, he did. I hadn’t noticed.”

They returned to the castle invigorated by their walk, excited about what they’d learned about the transformation, but at the same time with the edge of soft sadness that being with George always seemed to leave with them.

People’s names were important, Harry realised. He remembered how it had felt when Malfoy had called him Harry. When Draco had. It was still new thinking of Malfoy as Draco, and Harry had to make an effort to do so. But each time he did, it got a little easier.

***

The nights following the days Harry had worked with Malfoy - Draco - on the Room, he slept better. Whether this was from the sheer fullness of those days, or from simple physical exhaustion, Harry was not sure. Perhaps a mix of both. The rest of the time he still lay awake, or stayed in the common room late into the night

One night he sat at his favourite seat at the study tables, trying to finish his Charms homework. He would have asked Hermione, but she and Ron had gone off together somewhere that afternoon - he noticed that they didn’t question his absences, and suspected they went off somewhere then, too - and he hadn’t had a chance after they came back for dinner. He was stuck.

Lavender and Parvati were the only others left in the common room, on one of the sofas by the dying fire.

Harry didn’t know why he even attempted to do homework at this time of night: his brain was working in weary circles, with nothing new going in and nothing really coming out either. He sat back, and rolled his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension that came from sitting over the desk for so long.

“I think you’re beautiful,” he heard Parvati say.

Lavender murmured something in response. Harry didn’t hear the words, but the tone was gentle, warm. They sounded so comfortable together. A lot more comfortable than Harry did, with his stiff neck and tight shoulders.

“I do mean the scars, too,” Parvati said. Harry couldn’t help himself; he glanced over at the two of them. Lavender was lying on the sofa, her head on Parvati’s lap, and Parvati was stroking her hair. He felt a little as though he were eavesdropping, or spying; the moment felt intimate.

Harry must have made a noise, or maybe the movement attracted their attention, because both girls looked up at him.

“Oh hello, Harry, didn’t see you there,” Parvati said. She didn’t sound annoyed at all. “I was thinking of putting another log on the fire. Do you want to sit with us? It’s too late to be doing homework, your brain must be fried.”

Harry looked back down at his homework, then back at Parvati. They looked warm and he had to admit it was an inviting thought, sitting back on one of the sofas and letting himself relax. “It is a bit,” he said. “You look comfy there, don’t move. I’ll put the log on the fire.”

He crossed the room, found a medium-sized log, and added it to the fire that was indeed dying down.

“You always seem to be up late,” Lavender said. She’d threaded a hand through Parvati’s now. She must be tired, Harry realised, because she was speaking so soft and slow.

“I’m not the only one,” Harry said. Yellow flames were licking at the log now. Hopefully it would catch properly soon.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to be warm and safe,” Lavender said.

“You seem more… relaxed than you did when we came back in September,” Harry said, although as soon as it was out of his mouth he worried that maybe he’d overstepped in some way.

Lavender smiled, and squeezed Parvati’s hand. “It’s strange, I’ve got these,” she touched her face with her free hand, “and everything else I’ve got to deal with after the attack, and yet some things in life are easier. Simpler.”

“I already told you, you’re beautiful with or without the scars,” Parvati said.

“Like Millie with her hair,” Lavender said. “With or without.”

Parvati started stroking Lavender’s hair again. “Who you are on the inside shows more now.”

Her words surprised Harry. He’d not thought of Parvati as a deep thinker before, but there was a truth in what she was saying: the more flighty bits of Lavender seemed to have gone, but what was left was some kind of essence of who she was.

As though to underscore this, Lavender giggled. It was a sound so familiar from the past and yet so newly delivered that Harry saw that there really wasn’t anything that had disappeared at all.

“I’m not sure the world wants to see the inside of my face.”

“You are ridiculous,” Parvati said. “It’s not like you got turned inside out.”

“It sounded like that’s what you were saying.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Lavender said. She turned her head to Harry, and he realised he’d got used to seeing her scars now. They were pink and raised, but Parvati was right: you could see who she was. And it was beautiful. “What about you, Harry?” Lavender asked. She considered him. “You seem… looser somehow,” Lavender said.

“I think it suits you that you’re not busy saving the world,” Parvati said. “It must have been exhausting.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to laugh. “It was a bit. And we haven’t got to the summer term yet, that’s when it always went a bit pear-shaped.”

“I was wondering,” Parvati said. “What really happened with Professor Lockhart, back in second year?”

“He was dreamy,” Lavender said. “Although looking back, perhaps a bit of a plonker, too.”

Harry sat back, and launched into the story of the Basilisk, and Lockhart. He left out some of the details about Riddle’s diary and Ginny, as that didn’t seem his business to tell.

The fire had come back as the log was consumed, and by the end of his telling Lavender was yawning. She looked ready for bed.

The door to the boys’ dorms opened, and Malfoy crept out. Malfoy had his thick dressing gown on, dark green and knotted at his waist with a thick striped cord, and looked as though he too couldn’t sleep. His hair was messy and tousled, as though he’d been lying in bed, tossing and turning. He stopped when he saw the three of them by the fire.

“Malfoy,” Harry said, his heart in his mouth.

“Potter.”

There was a giggle from the girls.

“Do you two still call each other that?” Parvati said. Lavender stayed quiet, and Parvati continued to stroke her hair. Harry had felt as though he were spying on them earlier, but even in Malfoy’s presence they stayed exactly as they had been before. They were, he realised, perfectly at ease with one another.

Malfoy’s back stiffened.

“We have done for years now,” Harry said.

Lavender seemed to sink further into Parvati’s arms, and yawned once more.

“I suppose at least you are talking to each other,” Parvati said.

“You should try calling each other by your names,” Lavender said. “We all should by now.”

“Go on,” Parvati said. “Give it a go. I’ll start. Hello, Draco.”

Malfoy looked as though he might fall over. Either that, or stiffen up entirely. “Good evening, Parvati,” he said in the tightest voice Harry had ever heard him use. “And Lavender.” He nodded at each of them.

Maybe Harry was the only one who noticed, but Malfoy’s voice softened a fraction. “And good evening, Harry.”

Finally, Harry was going to be able to say the name that had been tumbling around his head for weeks aloud. “Hello, Draco.” Did the others hear his voice wobble? Had Malfoy noticed? He didn’t know. “Why don’t you come and sit with us, too?”

“Don’t take it personally,” Parvati said, “But we’re going in a sec. I need to get this one” - she patted Lavender on the head - “to bed.”

“I’m whacked,” Lavender said, her mouth half-stretched by another yawn.

Malfoy sat beside Harry, his knees neatly together, his legs bent at a perfect right angle. He looked faintly ridiculous, Harry thought, and utterly awkward. The firelight glinted gold on his hair and skin.

“Take a leaf out of Harry’s book, Draco,” Parvati said as she and Lavender got up to leave. “Loosen up.”

“You’re safe here,” Lavender said. When she spoke, Malfoy seemed to freeze into an even more stiffly-held position.

“I will try to,” Malfoy said, even his voice stiff. “Thank you.”

As Lavender and Parvati walked off, Harry heard one of them say, “…most I’ve heard him say all year,” and the other: “Poor Harry, should we have left him?”

Their voices faded as the door to the girls’ rooms closed behind them.

“They’re right, you know,” Harry said.

“Poor you?”

“No. You can loosen up a bit, you know.”

Malfoy looked at him, and Harry saw more sadness in his eyes than normal; he was, he realised, beginning to expect a clear-eyed intimacy instead.

“How can I? I’ll never truly be accepted.”

“If I can…” Harry said. “Besides, they didn’t tell you to go away, did they?”

“They left.”

“Lavender was falling asleep. It is late, you know.”

“You have an answer for everything, but it isn’t as simple as that.”

“Why not?” Harry was aware that if anyone else in their year came in and saw them talking, they would be surprised. This was the first time they’d exchanged more than an ‘excuse me’ moving past each other in the eighth-year rooms, and Harry probably spoke to him more than to anyone else. It was time, he decided, to be brave. “You are worth knowing, Draco.”

Malfoy’s - Draco’s - lips parted, and he inhaled sharply.

“You want to continue that?” he said. “Even though they’ve gone.”

“Yes,” Harry said simply. “I do.”

The long, slow look he got in return was an answer, in a way. It was searching, and there was pain and hope at its edges, like the rainbows at the edges of the light flashes in the Room.

Harry could hear his own breathing, feel the corresponding rise and fall of his chest. He could see pink cheeks that made him think of more pink skin, acres of it wrapped in white bubbles. He could feel the heat of the fire, and the roar of it burning as well as the crackle of the flames.

“Harry.”

The thought came to Harry, very clearly, that something was being set right. If they had been in the Room, whole trees of stone would have bloomed.

Draco laughed, a little shakily. He had always been Draco, Harry knew that. But it had been safer, somehow, to hide behind ‘Malfoy’.

Harry felt naked without the protection.

“I guess I need to grow up a bit,” Draco said. “It’s been too easy to call you ‘Potter’.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Harry said. “I managed with Blaise and Millicent, but with you it’s taken longer.”

“We do have a lot of history.” Draco paused, then laughed. “And I hate to tell you this, but only Millie’s mother calls her Millicent. And you know how she feels about her mother.”

“Really?” Talking about other people was safer, and Harry was grateful for the way out it offered. “But we’ve all been calling her Millicent for months! Why didn’t she say something?”

“Do you have any idea what you are like? A big group of noisy marauders, all of you on the right side, none of you having to watch what you say, or question everything - or anything - about who you are?”

The words ‘marauders’ brought Harry’s father and his friends to mind. He saw them again through Snape’s memories: a closed group, arrogant, and unaware of their effect on other people. Were he and his friends like that? Even as he asked himself, Harry knew that they were. Older memories, of Dudley and his friends, rose to the surface.

“I suppose,” said Harry, hating how vague he sounded. He sighed. “How hard has it been, coming back to school this year?”

Draco regarded him for a moment, firelight making him golden. “Hard, but not… what I thought it would be. Some of it has been… unexpected.”

“I can’t believe Ron invited you for lunch.”

“That wasn’t a lunch invitation,” Draco said. “He doesn’t like me.”

“It was something,” Harry said. “You… you apologised. And Ron told me after that he didn’t want to hold grudges anymore. He can see you’ve changed.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

“That he’s willing to move on, or that you’ve changed?”

Draco shrugged.

“I think we all needed this time,” Harry said. “I know I did, before heading out into the world.” He didn’t know how to say that it was more than the world. It was adult life, and not having school to fall back on to take care of him. The thought frightened Harry a little: he knew he could look after himself, but he also knew how lonely it could be.

Draco’s face closed down a little. “Back out there… I think it will be harder than here. For me. For you…” He sighed. “The world is a different place for you.”

“We’re not there yet,” Harry said. “We don’t really know what it’s going to be like, do we?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Let’s simply be young then, for a while. And see what happens.” He paused. “Draco.”

Draco smiled. “Harry.”

When the fire died down they went back to the boys’ bedroom. Harry was aware, the whole time, that the person in the bed to his left was _Draco_ now, not Malfoy.

***

The Hog’s Head seemed better able to cope with the raucous group of eighth years, but when Harry saw Draco, sitting all pale and stiff next to Blaise, he realised there might be another reason the change in venue was a good idea. Blaise had been to the pub with them once before, on Harry’s invitation. This time he had brought Draco with him, and, Harry remembered, Draco had committed one of the worst of his crimes at the Three Broomsticks: Imperiusing Madam Rosmerta.

Harry had attended Draco’s trial, had heard Madam Rosmerta talk about her experience of being Imperiused, as well as Draco’s muted and pained account of his life since Voldemort had returned. It was one of the things that Harry locked away with how Draco had been in the past, the cruelty of it. An Unforgivable. But one reason Draco had been able to help Harry with the Protean Charm had been because he’d used it to charm coins to communicate with her.

Uncertainty rose in Harry in an unsettling lurch, an unbalancing wrench from the present into the past. Draco had been so small and lost at his trials, but that didn’t make what he had done forgivable. Off-balance, the room seemed to spin for a moment, and Harry’s stomach spun with it.

The cold and dark lane welcomed Harry back as he stumbled out of the pub. He held onto the bench by the door, trying to understand what was happening to him as the world felt as though it wobbled around him. Moonlight painted everything silver, and looking up at the full moon Harry felt strangely soothed. He smiled sadly, remembering the floating orb that the Boggart had changed into when Lupin faced it. He could do with Lupin now, with someone to talk to.

“Harry?”

Harry looked up. George was walking down the street, a bag tucked under his arm.

“Hi, George.”

“Why are you standing out here all by yourself?”

“I didn’t feel well, needed some fresh air.”

“Sit down,” George said. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”

Harry did as he was told, and George came to sit beside Harry. The world seemed to stop spinning as much. “Thanks.”

“You better not be sick on me.”

“I won’t.”

They sat together quietly for a moment, as Harry took deep lungfuls of air until his stomach settled a little. And then the silence extended; Harry had noticed that since Fred had died, George had these moments of silence more. Sometimes it seemed like sadness, other times as though it was a way to still hold some space for his twin.

“It’s all so confusing,” Harry said. “Everyone’s inside. Some of us weren’t friends last year.”

“Do you mean the Slytherins?” George asked, direct as always.

Harry nodded. “I can see that they’ve changed, or are changing.”

“But?”

“But I also remember what they were like, before.”

George sighed heavily. “I think this is just something you are going to have to learn to live with,” he said. “Maybe there’s a part of you that is angry and that might always be angry, but it sounds as though there’s another part of you that wants to be friends.”

Harry thought about what George had said. The sick feeling in his stomach did feel like a pushing and pulling between different ways of seeing and feeling about Draco. “Yes, yes that’s it.”

“It sounds confusing.”

“It is.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, Harry, what do you want? Really, deep down?”

Harry saw pale hair, pink skin, a smile in the firelight. “I want… I want to be happy, to be free.”

“And which part can give you that? The angry part, or the part that wants to be friends?”

The churning in Harry’s stomach had eased a bit when George sat down, but now he felt it again, tugging away at the edges of what he wanted. He didn’t know what to do with his anger; it was all so confusing. But then it struck him that George himself didn’t seem angry, and he had more cause than most. “I thought you’d be angry, too.”

George shook his head. “Life is too short,” he said. “Much better to work out what makes you happy. I will never regret that we left school early, or that we took the risk to set up our business.” He paused, and Harry felt it was one of the spaces where Fred got to be present, too. “Life gives us so many chances to be filled with regrets and what-ifs; the moments when we know we did the thing, whatever it was, that was the closest to us being happy, those are the ones to hold onto.”

Harry’s stomach felt calmer; the sick feeling was easing.

“How would you feel, if you saw me, or Ron, or Ginny, palling up with someone who had been in Slytherin?”

“I would…” George sighed. “I’d have to deal with it, wouldn’t I? Because when it comes down to it, what can make me happy now includes my family being happy.” He reached over to tousle Harry’s hair. “All my family.”

“Do you want to come in with me?” Harry said, nodding over to the pub’s door. “I’m sure Ron would be happy to see you.”

George looked at the door, a wistful expression on his face, but then he shook his head. “Thank you, but no.” He held up his bag, and Harry realised it clinked; he had his own drinks. “I’ve actually got someone coming over in a bit - never you mind who - so I’ll be fine.”

Someone? Harry supposed he wasn’t telling George everything about his life, so maybe George got to have a few secrets of his own, too.

“Maybe we can see you again soon?” Harry asked.

“I’m sure Ron will want a chance to grill me about my mysterious someone,” George said. “Don’t think I don’t know that the second I leave you are going to rush in there to tell him.” He chuckled. “I’ve been there before with my brothers, at least I’ve got a chance to prepare my defence.”

Harry watched as George walked away, his bag under his arm, and a cheery whistle on his lips.

In the quiet after he left, Harry sat for a while longer, his head feeling clearer than it had before. George was right, he needed to know what he wanted. He’d been living with his own confused longings for long enough now that he was almost ready to face them. The thought was oddly comforting: he wasn’t there yet, but he was definitely getting closer. At times he dipped into the galaxy of ‘what-ifs’, and they weren’t all as terrifying as he’d first thought.

What if… he liked men, the way he had thought he liked women? What if he liked one, but not the other? What if he liked both?

As he tried the thoughts out, nothing awful leapt out at him. His breath sped up a little and his chest grew tighter, but more out of excitement than fear.

It didn’t feel like so much of a ‘what-if’ as a… _I think I am_ , or _I think I do_.

What Harry did with this, he wasn’t sure. He knew he wasn’t quite facing the obvious, that there was a focus for these thoughts. One thing at a time.

With one last deep breath to fortify him, Harry stood and made his way back into the pub.

***

The group were still all making a lot of noise, laughing and drinking and teasing each other. Millie was ensconced with Hermione and Luna - an arresting combination - while Blaise was talking to Ginny and Padma. Draco, who Harry had first thought was sitting stiffly, was now clearly trying to give Blaise some space. His whole body was turned from Blaise and Ginny, and the look on his face was a mix of stoic resignation and deep discomfort.

Although Padma and Draco were sitting with them, the main conversation seemed to be between Ginny and Blaise. He’d wasted no time then, in using the opportunity to pursue her. Something fluttered in Harry; the tattered remnants of his old feelings for her, perhaps. In the past jealousy might have clawed at his insides, but what he felt now was far gentler. It raised its head then faded away, a thing of the past and no longer needed.

He came to join them, and Ginny broke off from what she was saying.

“Harry! We were wondering when you’d turn up.”

Blaise looked rather as though he’d been hoping Harry wouldn’t turn up at all, giving him a small glare before turning his large, lopsided smile on. “Good to see you, Harry.”

“Thank Merlin you’re here,” Padma said. “These two started talking about Quidditch and I was beginning to lose the will to live.”

“Hey!” Ginny said. “Everyone likes Quidditch.”

“I like it,” Padma said, “I like to watch a match. But a play-by-play account of every match played by Puddlemere United in the past year is a step too far for me.”

“Who wants a drink?” Harry asked.

“I’ll help you carry them,” Padma said.

Harry took everyone’s orders - getting more than a syllable out of Draco proving to be a challenge - then headed to the bar with Padma in tow.

“Can you believe that’s the same Draco Malfoy who used to preen around the school like a peacock?” Padma said, as soon as they were out of earshot.

Harry gave a non-committal grunt.

Padma gave him a sideways look. “And what about Ginny and Blaise?”

“What about them?”

“Oh come off it, Harry, I know you’re not that stupid. He was practically sitting up like a puppy dog, hanging off her every word.”

“He’s free to hang off as many words of hers as he wants.”

“And you’re OK with that?”

“I know I went out with her, but it’s been a while since we broke up. She can flirt with as many charming big-smiled former Slytherins as she wants.”

“Good. Blaise is at least trying.” She sighed. “But does Draco have to be such a wet blanket? I don’t understand why he’s here if he’s going to look so miserable.”

Harry glanced back at where Draco was still sitting, white-faced and tight-mouthed, staring into space.

“You don’t mind him being here?”

“I don’t have the same history you two have,” Padma said. “We used to watch you two glaring at each other over breakfast.”

“I did not—”

“Don’t worry, I think he glared at least as much as you did. He hardly seems like the same person now though,” she said thoughtfully.

“I guess it’s hard for him,” Harry said, fighting the temptation to look back at Draco again.

“I did try talking to him, when they arrived,” Padma said. “He barely said a word.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a go,” Harry said, hating himself for sounding so magnanimous when all he was doing was finding an excuse to talk to Draco.

“Good luck,” Padma said darkly.

When they got back with the drinks, Padma went to join Hermione, Millie and Luna, leaving Harry with Draco and an increasingly oblivious Ginny and Blaise.

“You look like someone’s stuck a stick up your bum,” Harry said as he sat next to Draco.

Draco’s eyes fluttered shut in irritation, and Harry felt a small glow of satisfaction. Draco was listening, and hadn’t completely tuned out then.

“Can’t it be enough that I let Blaise drag me along?” Draco said.

“Probably,” Harry said. “But you do look miserable, you know.”

“I’m trying very hard,” Draco said through clenched teeth, “not to jump up and run out of the door.”

“You really don’t want to be here, do you?”

“No,” Draco said.

“Then why are you here?”

Draco was silent. Harry was used to this, could see that Draco was working out what he wanted to say, and waited.

“I wanted to see what it was like. I wanted… not to think it was me, always holding myself back. And…”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to see what your world was like.” Draco’s eyes were on Harry now, and his body seemed held upright with a different type of tension. He didn’t look scared anymore. He looked… uncertain.

“And what does my world look like, to you?”

“Like there isn’t a place for me.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry said. His chest hurt.

“I’m not having this conversation here,” Draco said. “Not now.” He got up, leaving his drink untouched, and walked with small quick steps to the door leading down to the loos.

“…I bet you’re great on a broom,” Ginny was saying.

“Not as good as you,” Blaise replied.

Harry turned away from them, and away from Draco’s fast-retreating back.

“Mate, you look almost as stupid as Malfoy did,” Ron said, coming to sit down beside him. “Good on you though for trying to talk to him.”

“He’s OK,” Harry said.

“I thought so when he apologised the other day,” Ron said. “Then again, it’s hard to remember how he used to be when he’s always so quiet.”

“I think that’s the point,” said Harry. “I don’t think it’s how he is though.”

“What, it’s all an act, the apology and all that, and under it he’s calling us all names?” Ron didn’t sound as though he believed what he was saying.

“No, not that,” Harry said, shaking his head. His heart still felt shaky. “I mean it was an act before, all the ‘I’ll tell my father’ stuff. I wonder… who he really is.”

“That makes sense,” Ron said. “But I guess we won’t know if he doesn’t talk.” He shrugged. “Can’t say I’m too bothered one way or the other. I think I’ve done my bit.”

Harry didn’t want to be talking to Ron about Draco. A large part of him wanted to rush off and find Draco, and… and… his mind drew one of its blanks at what would happen next.

“I saw George outside,” Harry said. “I invited him in for a drink but he said he had someone coming over.”

As he’d hoped, this was enough to distract Ron. As Ron rushed forth with a stream of speculation, veering between George having a romantic interest and the possibility that shop-opening-planning was happening, Harry was aware of Draco coming back to join the group. He sat alone for a while, until Millie came to have a short chat with him.

Harry had spent the last few months getting to know Draco. He wasn’t anything like Harry had thought he would be. Harry liked him. He _liked_ him. Maybe his friends could get to know, even like Draco, too. If only Draco wasn’t so scared; if only he would open up.

Maybe this was the way it was going to be, but Harry didn’t like it. He was aware that there was a growing knot inside of him that came of having this secret part to his life. George’s question was still echoing around his head. What did he really want, deep down? Perhaps it wasn’t about who he fancied or what he did in his spare time. Maybe what he really wanted was to be able to live without having secret parts.

He wanted to be open about his friendship with Draco, and he wanted his friends to see what he saw. He did want to see Draco at the Weasleys’ no matter how much the others had treated the idea like a joke. And yes, he wanted to be able to admit to himself what it was he still kept skirting around the edges of.

***

The whole group of them walked back to the castle together. A bit merry, too loud, but young and alive.

Draco walked with Millie, but it wasn’t the shoulders-down walk they’d done at the beginning of September. Whatever she’d said to him must have worked, because they talked the whole way back. Harry even heard Draco laugh.

It was good to see Draco relax with his old friends, even a little. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Draco had been to the pub with them all, and hadn’t run away. He still wished that he’d been able to talk to Draco again, that it was him Draco was laughing with. It felt as though they’d had an argument, and had not been able to finish it. But then maybe they had both been in strange moods that evening; maybe it was inevitable considering everything that had happened in the past.

***

Back in their room, Harry left the side of his bed curtains that faced Draco open. When Draco came back from brushing his teeth he looked over at Harry’s bed, and froze, just for a moment. Harry doubted any of the others noticed.

Harry watched Draco undo his thick dressing gown, watched his pale bare feet toe off his slippers and push them to the side neatly, and watched him get into his bed. Draco, too, left a gap in his curtains, and the two of them looked at each other.

 _Sorry_ , Harry mouthed, his hand moving in a vague ‘sorry’ gesture in the air, _You seemed upset tonight. I hope you’re OK now._

Draco stared at him, and didn’t react beyond looking puzzled. He shrugged, and turned away. After a while though he turned back, his grey eyes saying something Harry couldn’t read.

They lay there side by side in their separate beds, silent words unspoken between them.

Harry longed to actually speak to Draco, and considered getting up to go to the common room so they could speak. At the same time, he had drunk enough that he could feel sleep beginning to pull at him, so settled for looking at Draco looking at him. Why hadn’t they done this before? Draco’s bed was somewhat hidden from the rest of the room by Harry’s, and besides most of them slept with their curtains shut anyway. If only they could do this, and talk to each other.

His marbles! Of course: he could give Draco one, and he could send him messages like that.

Feeling tipsy and wind-chilled but warm at the same time, Harry sank into a satisfied sleep.

***

Harry wasn’t sure whether it was his imagination or not, but the room looked brighter. February had given way to March, and with it even more rain seemed to have arrived. And yet everywhere he looked Harry saw the promise of the summer to come. Even this room, with its rough walls now covered in twining branches of carved stone, had an air of promise about it. Buds grew from the branches, and the Warming Charms now functioned well enough that the whole room seemed welcoming.

In the room, of course, was Draco. There was promise there, too, Harry knew.

“I was thinking,” Harry said. “About the other night.”

Draco’s head shot up from where he was organising their small snack selection. Harry kept bringing things up to the room, and Draco would fuss about crumbs but still take the slice of cake or piece of chocolate. As Draco had ventured into Hogsmeade at the weekend, this time he’d also added to their collection with some of his favourites.

“I told you, I—”

“It’s OK,” Harry said. The time to talk it all through seemed to have faded away. “We don’t need to go through all that again.”

“Then what is it?”

“I had an idea.” He dug a marble out from his pocket, and stepped forward to hold it out to Draco.

“It’s one of yours, that you charmed,” Draco said, turning it over while he held it up, so it caught the light.

Harry nodded. “So I can talk to you. If we want to,” he added quickly. “I’m not saying you have to, I just thought—“

“It’s a good idea,” Draco said, “I may have had the same idea.”

He reached into his pocket and drew out a familiar looking badge: the words ‘Potter Stinks’ flashed up at Harry.

“You’ve charmed this?” Harry asked.

“It seemed apt. And this way we can talk to each other. I… I only made the one. For you.” A shy smile spread across his face. “It will certainly be easier than trying to work out what you mean when you wave your hands around in the air.”

“I was trying to ask if you were OK!”

“Oh, is that what it was?” said Draco. “I thought it was… never mind.”

He was, Harry noticed, still smiling, and had already pocketed his marble.

Harry looked down at the badge in his hand, then put it in his pocket, too. He cleared his throat, which was feeling a little tight. Maybe it had something to do with his own smile, which seemed to spring up whenever Draco smiled at him like that.

“Let’s practice the Patronus again,” Harry said. “And when we’ve had enough we can have a go at some self-Transfiguration.”

Draco nodded, then drew out his wand, the movement neat and graceful. He stood with a good stance, Harry noted: his feet hips-width apart, and his knees loose enough to be able to spring to action or balance as needed.

With a small, almost private smile, Draco said “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”, and a white cloud of mist erupted from the tip of his wand. It almost had a shape now, a roundness that puffed out then floated up before disappearing.

“It’s getting clearer,” Harry said. “I think you might have a corporeal Patronus pretty soon you know.”

“Really?” Draco’s eyes were shining. “That would be brilliant.”

The Room, Harry noticed, was getting warm enough to almost seem tropical. He took off his jumper, Draco watching him all the while.

When Draco cast his Patronus again, this time it was clearer than before. His heart lurched. It almost looked like—

Harry decided he must be imagining things. A white blob was a white blob.

***

That night Harry left his bed curtain open again, and so did Draco. He pulled his marble and the badge, thought for a moment, and sent a quick message.

_Good night, Draco._

He got a glimpse of pale eyes staring his way, and then he felt his badge warm in his hand.

_Good night, Harry._

He smiled, saw a smile in return, then lay back.

In his dreams he visited Diagon Alley for the first time again, eleven years old and new to the wonder of it all. Something inside of him knew who he was though, because when he saw Hedwig he almost cried.

And when he saw Draco, he smiled.

***

Rounding the corner after Herbology, later in the week, Harry almost walked into Millie. She was standing in the middle of the path, taking up space in a solid way that reminded Harry of Crabbe and Goyle in the old days. The scene in front of her, in fact, was reminiscent of those days too: two boys from the second or third year, angry at a small girl in a Hufflepuff tie who had recently been crying; her eyes were red and there were tear marks on her face.

“Say sorry to her,” Millie was saying. “Are you OK?” Her voice was more gentle when she addressed the girl.

The girl nodded, took a deep breath, and held her head up.

Millie rounded on the boys - both Gryffindors, Harry noticed - and folded her arms. “Hufflepuffs are part of this school, and a valuable part at that. Apologise.”

The boys looked up and noticed Harry standing behind Millie.

Harry thought of Cedric and Tonks. “This school owes a lot to the loyalty and bravery of Hufflepuffs,” he said.

Millie turned, and Harry realised she hadn’t known he was there. For a moment he thought she might be annoyed that he’d said anything, but she stepped aside slightly so they were next to each other, and nodded at him.

“These two thought that it would be fun to pick on someone half their size.” She turned to the boys again. “Look, I get it. But there are other ways to prove how tough you are. Ones that don’t hurt people. Consider Harry here, he’s done his hero thing, but I think it’s also great that he’s been making friends since the war. It… it doesn’t get better unless we make an effort. We had to learn the hard way, but you lot have a chance to do better now. So apologise.”

The two boys shuffled their feet. “Sorry,” they said in gruff voices.

After he and Millie had got all their names, the boys sulked off and the girl - Rebecca - promised she was OK, Millie sighed.

“I don't think they were sorry at all,” she said.

“Would you have been?”

She shook her head sadly. “Probably not. Just pissed off at getting told off.”

“There must be something we can do,” Harry said, “to stop history repeating.”

Millie touched his arm. “I think you’ve already done more than most. And what I said to those boys is true: making friends has been the best thing we’ve done this year.”

“I’m glad I’m friends with you now,” Harry said. He thought of Draco sitting stiffly in the pub. “But I know it’s not possible for everyone to be friends with each other.”

They began walking back to the castle. “Maybe what made the difference with us,” said Millie, “was having to see each other every day. Not only in lessons, but sharing rooms and the common room.”

Harry nodded. He thought about how small Rebecca had looked, and sighed. “Sometimes I think that if I had a choice now, I’d ask the Sorting Hat to be Sorted into Hufflepuff. I’ve begun to suspect that one thing Gryffindors and Slytherins have in common is a slight tendency towards having to prove how big and tough they are.”

“A _slight_ tendency?” Millie snorted. “If you mean ‘be bullies’ I think you might be right,” Millie said. “You and Draco certainly kept at each other, didn’t you?”

“He was horrible,” Harry said. “All of that pureblood crap.”

“You weren’t friendly to him, either. Nor to any of us in Slytherin,” Millicent reminded him gently.

What had Harry missed out on? But when he thought of the Draco of the past, he couldn’t imagine getting past the sneer. How he’d been was one of the main reasons Harry hadn’t liked Slytherins, after all.

But then he thought of Draco in the present, and his heart stuttered.

“I was hideous when I was younger,” Millie said, oblivious to Harry’s inner confusion. “I wish there’d been some way to learn how to… I don’t know, be happier with myself back then. Feel less like we all had to choose sides.” Her steps slowed. “Do you know, I’m going to think about this. First I’m going to report those students, then I’m going to work out what we can do to stop this happening again.”

Harry watched her go up the stairs into the castle. She really had changed; he’d never thought he’d see Millie sticking up for the underdog. But then again, he couldn’t have imagined that she’d be doing it with him at her side.

***

With the single lantern lit, the room was filled with the sinuous shadows of stone branches. Softly dark at its edge, an inner warmth and light held Harry and Draco.

“George said that the secret to self-Transfiguration was knowing who you were,” Harry said. “More than how you look.”

“McGonagall said it was good to practise with a mirror,” Draco said. “I wish we had one.”

“It would be helpful,” said Harry.

“We could get a good mental picture then.”

Harry noticed a rectangle of light slanting across the floor. It hadn’t been there before. They had grown accustomed to flashes of light and twining stone branches, but he’d not seen anything like this before. He looked up, and froze.

“What?”

Hanging on the wall was a tall mirror, its frame a riot of intertwining oak leaves carved in a dark wood.

“Oh,” said Draco softly.

“The Room,” Harry said. “It’s working again.”

What did this mean, he wondered? If the Room could meet the requirements again, did it mean his time with Draco in it was over? Harry didn’t want to stop meeting Draco, he wanted to keep working on their magic, even if the room was repaired. He glanced over at Draco to try to work out if he felt the same, but Draco was staring at the mirror.

“Let’s have a good look at ourselves, help build a mental picture,” Draco said.

They both moved closer to the mirror, both reached out to touch it. It certainly felt real. Would Draco retreat again, would he hide away from Harry? The thought made Harry ache.

Harry looked at the two of them standing side by side. It stirred a memory, but he couldn’t quite place of what. With an effort he focused on his own appearance. It looked much as it ever had: scruffy hair, his scar… he saw now that he was older, that his face was that of a man. He had stubble shading his chin, and his eyes looked tired.

“I look knackered.”

Draco’s eyes glanced over at his. “You need more sleep.”

“I sleep enough. At least as much as you do.”

They always left their bed curtains ajar enough to see each other now.

Harry kept his old thoughts about Draco needing to eat more to himself: the man was all angles. They often shared a piece of cake when Harry could pilfer some from the kitchens, and since they’d been working on the Room Harry had noticed that Draco had begun eating more at meals. So, none of his business really.

Draco shook his head. “You lie awake, you’re always still awake when I fall asleep. I see you.”

Harry had a lot to think about at night, but he wasn’t going to tell Draco about that. He turned his attention back to the mirror. “I’ve been thinking about what George said, about knowing who you are, and I’m not sure looking in a mirror is enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I think we need to be able to close our eyes, and really feel who we are, how we feel in our bodies. And use that as the anchor to return to.”

“I wonder,” Draco said slowly, “if doing that would be enough to return you to your original state, rather than reversing the transformation through a counter-spell?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Harry.

He stepped back, and closed his eyes. He could feel the weight of his feet on the ground, feel the way his chest moved with his breathing. He could feel the warmth at the centre of himself, and the tingling energy of his finger tips. Deeper inside he could feel the old sadnesses of his childhoods, and the bright warmth of his friendships at Hogwarts, magic threaded like a line of silver throughout. And there, nestled in all of that, a jewel-bright glow that was how he felt about Draco.

Harry took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and cast a self-Transfiguration on his hair, turning it into a Rapunzel-like flow of thick blond hair. He saw Draco’s eyes widen in surprise, but focused on the feeling of the weight of it on his shoulders and back.

In his mind and in his body he tried to connect again with the feeling of who he was, the old sadness and the bright warmth, the silver of magic, the glow of how he felt.

Slowly, the weight lifted from his shoulders.

“Did it work?”

Draco nodded. His skin was slightly flushed, his lips a little parted. “That was incredible. You seemed to… relax back into your natural state.”

“You have a go,” said Harry. “But take the time to get an idea of how you feel first.”

“OK.”

Harry watched as Draco closed his eyes, and a peaceful expression passed over his face. It reminded Harry of how Draco looked when he fell asleep: younger, open, vulnerable. It felt incredibly intimate, to be seeing Draco like this.

He couldn’t have said anything when Draco opened his eyes again, even if he had wanted to. As Draco’s eyes opened, it was as though a shutter had come down, one that protected Draco from the world. Harry’s feelings wrapped thick around his throat. Instead he stood back quietly as Draco pointed his wand on himself, and began to transform, his hair becoming an exaggerated crows’ nest of messy black hair.

And then Harry understood what Draco had seen. The guarded look that Draco wore lifted again, but this time with Draco’s eyes open. It felt strangely as though for a second he saw something of Draco’s soul showing through, and the shift back to Draco’s normal blond hair seemed natural, like something elastic relaxing and returning to its normal shape.

Draco turned to look in the mirror, perhaps to check he had returned to normal. Once again Harry looked at their reflections, side by side. And this time he remembered why it looked so familiar: he was reminded of another mirror, years before, and what it had shown.

His heart’s desire.

***

“Ron and I have talked about it, and we’re not going to the Burrow or to see my parents for all of Easter,” Hermione said. “I want to… do something different. Go somewhere else. And I… well, we… we were wondering whether you’d want to come with us? I’ve arranged for a Portkey to take us somewhere nice.”

“Does this somewhere nice involve other people at all?”

“No, it’s somewhere there’d only be the three of us.”

“And your revision books,” Ron added.

“I know you joke about it,” Hermione said, “But I know that you also know that I wouldn’t be able to relax if I didn’t have them. It doesn’t mean we can’t have a nice time together though.”

“It might be our last chance,” Harry said. “I mean, I know you two will be spending lots of time together in the future.” They both beamed at him. “But for the three of us, before we have to get on with our lives or have jobs or any of that stuff.”

“Exactly,” Hermione said. “Although I hope we do have chances to do things like this again. Maybe this isn’t our last chance, but our first one. We’ve never had a holiday before, have we?”

“That bloody tent doesn’t count. Not even for the World Cup,” said Ron.

“No camping,” Hermione said quickly. “We’ve got a nice place to stay. What do you say, Harry?”

The thought flashed through Harry’s mind that it would be even better with Draco there. But then he imagined Ron and Hermione’s horrified responses - and, to be honest, Draco’s too - to such a proposal. To even think such a thought was madness; maybe what he needed now was some space to sort through how he felt. Spending all this time with Draco was making him feel… muddled. Perhaps the best thing for him would be peace, quiet, and time with his two oldest friends while he worked out what was happening, and what he wanted to happen.

The decision made, he nodded.

“I’m so glad!” Hermione said. “Just pack for somewhere warm and sandy by the sea.”

***

The Room, now it was beginning to anticipate requirements again, had provided them with a long low bench beside a merry fire. A tall grandfather clock stood further along the wall, the pendulum swinging in slow arcs. The whole room was filled with the golden light of afternoon, and looked like a stone forest, caught on the cusp of coming to life. When they had come in to see this change, Harry had almost felt a drop of loss; if the room was fixed, was there any reason to keep seeing Draco?

He knew that he wanted to, knew that Draco took up so much space in his mind it needed as much time as possible with him to come anywhere near matching it.

Which was why the words stuck in Harry’s throat when they had finished catching up on the past few days, and he had to say that he would be going away with Ron and Hermione. As though spending time alone with them was somehow taking something away from Draco.

“We need the time together,” Harry said. “We spent so much time being miserable together last year it will be better to be together when things are good. No distractions. Not that I’m saying that you’re a distraction—”

Harry stopped when he saw how Draco’s face had fallen, aware that he was babbling now, trying to justify how he was feeling.

“We weren’t going to see each other anyway, were we?” Harry said.

“I know,” Draco said. “It’s just…” He swallowed, and raised his head up. His eyes were pale grey and full of light, and they were fixed on Harry without wavering. Slowly, he leant into Harry, closing the space between the two of them.

The fire crackled in the grate, and the breath in Harry’s chest squeezed tight into a painful ball.

Draco’s eyes were still bright with light, and so close now that Harry could see the sweep of his pale eyelashes. He burned under the directness of Draco’s gaze. There was no fear or confusion on Draco’s face; his face was open, sure, and calm. He looked utterly serious, but his mouth, Harry saw, was soft. Vulnerable.

Gently, ever so gently, Draco reached out and touched Harry’s face. And then he leant forward again, until his lips were touching Harry’s and he kissed him. The kiss was so soft and tender it was almost not there at all.

Except that ball of breath in Harry’s chest was also the bright jewel of how he felt, it was as though a volcano was rising up and threatened to overflow, a rushing burning river of fire and—

Draco pulled back. Harry hadn’t moved.

“Oh,” Harry breathed. He reached up to touch his lips. “I…”

Draco was still looking at him. Harry licked his lips, as though trying to hold onto the feel and taste of Draco.

Harry didn’t know what he wanted to do. His head, his body, was a mass of confusing thoughts and feelings, all whirring like white noise.

Draco Malfoy had _kissed_ him.

As though sensing Harry’s confusion, Draco sat back. Harry wanted him to kiss him again, wanted to know how it felt again, wanted it to last for longer. Maybe wanted to kiss him back, to see what that would feel like.

“You…” Harry took a shuddering breath, then the smile he felt inside burst through. “You kissed me.”

In answer, a soft smile touched the lips that had just touched Harry’s.

Before Harry could decide whether to lean forward himself, Draco turned his body, pulled out his wand, and cast his Patronus.

The cloud of white mist that emerged silver from his wand rose up, took shape, and spread its wings.

A white owl flew high into the Room, swooping low then fading into the light.

Harry stared after it, astonished. The owl had looked so familiar that his heart - already like a ship on a stormy sea, tossed this way and that - ached at the sight. A snowy owl, pure white, but so like Hedwig it hurt.

“I did it,” Draco said, his voice full of wonder. Was he referring to the Patronus, or the kiss? Harry wasn’t sure.

The sound of the clock chiming reverberated through the room. With a start, Harry realised that this was why the Room had provided a clock: he needed to go. Ron and Hermione were waiting for him.

“This… conversation isn’t finished,” Harry said. “But I have to go.”

“Now?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “Hermione’s got a Portkey. I need to be with them.” He wanted to stay, but knew he couldn’t. “They’re expecting me.”

Draco’s body shrank and he pulled back. It reminded Harry of how Draco had been back at the beginning of the school year.

“Please,” said Harry. “We need to talk. We’ll have a chance, just… not now. Not yet.”

He needed the time, too, he realised. He needed time to understand what had happened, what it meant for him. The noise in his head was growing, and he needed some space.

“Draco—”

“Go,” Draco said. “We can talk when we get back.”

Harry covered Draco’s hand with his own, and squeezed it softly. “Draco,” he said again. Draco’s fingers were cool to the touch, and trembling. Harry smiled at him. “I’ll meet you in here on the first day back. We can arrange it with the marbles and the badges.” Shakily, Draco squeezed his hand back.

“OK,” he said quietly. And then Harry found he did have the courage in him after all, and he leant forward, and dropped a quick soft kiss of his own on Draco’s lips.

When he walked out the owl was swooping around the room again.


	3. Summer

After his break away, everything felt different. When he, Ron, and Hermione arrived in Hogsmeade, a little travel-weary, small green leaves were unfurling from the trees, and the afternoon stretched into a light-filled evening. It felt as though the world had changed.

Harry had spent two weeks thinking about the two, brief kisses. It had been like floating, in and out of the days and nights. His lips remembered the touch of Draco’s, the shakiness of Draco’s hand and breath. In his dreams, memories mingled with _more_ , with touch and desire and release.

The whirling thoughts and feelings in his head and body hadn’t exactly died down, but Harry’d had the time to sit with them for long enough to have a better idea of what they were.

“You seem a little… distracted, Harry,” Hermione had said gently one afternoon. She’d come to join him on the deck by the sea, her face hidden under the brim of an enormous blue-and-white striped hat.

“I’ve never been on a holiday before,” Harry said. “I’d never even dreamed of one like this.”

Hermione stretched, cat-like, dipping her toes lazily in the sea before looking around her. “I used to go on holiday with mum and dad, but nothing like this.”

Harry knew this was more than a bog-standard holiday. They had a whole small tropical island to themselves, and the kitchen cupboards were stocked with full meals under Stasis Charms.

“Hermione,” he said, “I don’t understand how you got us here.” The question, once his body had got used to the abrupt change in hours and he had got his bearings, had begun to bother him.

“I know you don’t mean the Portkey, although you would do well to ask how I arranged that.” She smiled, but then the smile faded into still-raw sadness. “I got offered some compensation, by the Ministry, for what happened with my parents. Not a great deal, but it gave me the idea of us going away together. And then I… I’ve been writing some new chapters for _Hogwarts, a History_ \- only to amuse myself, really—”

How Hermione had managed to fit ‘a few chapters’ of writing in her already busy timetable, Harry had no idea.

“—but I owled the publishers with my proposal, and they asked to see what I'd written, and well”—a blush lit her cheeks—“they offered me an advance to continue the book!”

“They did?”

Hermione nodded. “And I’ve been using a pseudonym. They didn’t do it because of who I was. I had to tell them, of course, but they’ve agreed to use the pen name when they publish it.”

“That’s brilliant!” Pride burst through Harry, and he pulled her into a hug, knocking off her huge hat in the process. It fell into the sea, but he Summoned it back and dried it before handing it back.

“I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” Hermione said, examining her hat briefly then plonking it back on her head. “I wanted to see if something came of it before saying anything.”

She had Ron to talk to for her secrets, and it wasn’t like Harry didn’t have any of his own.

“That’s OK, I understand.”

“And what about you, Harry?” She asked softly. “There’s something going on for you, isn’t there?”

Harry nodded. “I’m trying to work something out. I guess a bit like you, I want to see if anything happens before I talk about it.” He suddenly felt vulnerable. “Is that OK?”

She linked her sun-warmed arm through his. “Of course it is,” she said.

Reassured and comfortable, they sat together for a while more, talking quietly about old memories. Harry was happy to stay in the safety of the past, but after she left he stared out into the flat turquoise sea. Following the glints of light in the small lazy waves, Harry replayed the entirety of the year over in his mind. The growing awareness of his wish to be close to Draco. The bath. The kisses.

Desire and longing rippled through him, a yearning that made breathing hard, his body squirm, and his heart ache.

Without anything to get in the way, the truth, the part of himself that he kept turning away from at the last minute could no longer be held back. He, Harry Potter, had a massive crush on Draco Malfoy; he wasn’t as straight as he’d assumed. Memories of his past feelings towards girls had faded under the onslaught of his many and complicated feelings towards Draco, but they had been real. It was just that Draco took up so much space now.

He didn’t only want to spend time with Draco, or hear his voice. He wanted to touch him, and be touched by him. He wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Draco until he ran out of breath, what it would be like to build to a point of mutual arousal and then… and then.

He saw again naked flesh, all pink and pale amongst the bubbles. He wanted to do that again, but this time touch and taste.

He felt it with every touch-starved hormonal part of his body.

At the same time, he wanted to be able to be honest. It was about more than touch, or getting off. It was about attraction and a deeper pull of connection. He had to be true to and with himself, with Draco - and somehow, with his friends. Would they think of him differently? He watched Ron and Hermione as they all played cards together, or as they splashed in the sea. His friends would love him no matter what. And yet he still didn’t know how to tell them, where to start. He’d been living a double life all year, trying to get on as an eighth year with them, and fixing the Room with Draco.

Harry and his friends had come back to Hogsmeade a day before the start of term, and stayed one night with George. Harry spent an uncomfortable night on the sofa, as George only had the one guest room.

Harry woke early - his body was still confused as to what time it was after their trip away - and heard George rise around six.

“You look different, Harry,” George said as he handed Harry a cup of tea a short while later. Early-morning light, along with the blankets on the sofa, gave the room an in-between feel; neither a place to sleep, nor a living room. George sat with his own thick mug of tea, on the armchair he’d cavorted on as a kitten.

“I feel different,” Harry said.

George looked at him with a quietly assessing eye. “It’s more than a tan,” he said eventually.

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to talk quite yet.

“I feel different, too,” George said. “I miss Fred,” he said quietly. “I always will. It’s so huge, the hole he’s left. But… it’s beginning to feel like I’ve found the edges of it.” He shook his head. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear this. Every time we talk I end up talking about him. I don’t know why.” He gave Harry a sad smile. “Maybe because he liked you, too.”

“Thanks,” said Harry. “I… appreciate it. You being honest with me.”

“Is there something you want to be honest with me about?” George said after a pause.

Without looking at George, Harry gave a single sharp nod of the head. “Yes.”

“Now, or not yet?” George said gently.

“Maybe… not quite yet,” Harry said. But then he took a deep breath, because even if he couldn’t tell George everything - Draco, the Room - but he could say something. The sound of his heart thudding filled his ears. “I think I’m… I’ve realised I’m probably bisexual.”

Harry felt a flood of relief at having finally spoken the words aloud, and at the same time deep anxiety at how they would be received. The contradiction between the two left his stomach in knots.

“Oh.”

Harry looked at George. What did that mean? What kind of a response was ‘Oh’?

But then George got up, and came to sit beside Harry amongst the blankets. He touched Harry on the arm. “Thank you for telling me. I… I’m happy we have you in our family. I think I'm only saying what mum and dad will say. We do love you Harry. Whoever you fancy.” He paused. “Although maybe it will be easier if it’s not any more family members. I know that Charlie’s gay, but—”

A rushing sound seemed to fill Harry’s ears. He wasn’t alone in this? No one at school really talked about anything other than being straight. “Charlie’s gay?”

George looked at him with surprise. “You didn’t know?”

“No.” No, Harry hadn’t known.

“I was only joking about you fancying him,” George said.

“OK,” said Harry. “Anyway, just to be clear, I don’t fancy any of your brothers.”

There was a silence, as though George was quietly parsing his words. “But you do fancy someone.”

Harry nodded. His mouth seemed stuck shut again.

“You don’t have to tell me,” George said. “This is yours, you get to choose what you tell.”

They sat quietly together, and Harry cradled his cup of tea in his hand. As though sensing that Harry needed more space, George moved back to the armchair.

Once George had drained his cup of tea, he broke the silence. “Have you spoken to Ron and Hermione yet?”

“No.”

“In that case I doubly appreciate you telling me. And I won’t say anything. Remember Harry, when you’re ready you can tell, because it’s yours.”

Harry nodded. A shaky kind of relief flooded through him, that he wasn’t going to be forced to say more than he was ready to, and that he’d told someone, that he’d finally said it out loud.

Also, and he wasn’t quite sure how or when, but he realised he’d acquired an older brother.

***

Harry, Ron, and Hermione headed back to Hogwarts early enough that they shared a small lunch with the teachers and those few students who’d stayed at the school over Easter. Without most of the students, the school seemed echoing and empty, and Harry thought back to how even when empty it had always seemed more of a home than Privet Drive ever had.

“Are you OK, Harry?” Hermione said.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “I think my body’s still confused about what time it is.”

“You fidget much more and you’ll wear a hole through the floor,” Ron said.

It wasn’t anything to do with time zones, though. Harry was jittery, his foot tapping the floor, because he was either nervous or excited about the prospect of seeing Draco. Both, he realised; they had only talked a little over the past two weeks, and he wasn’t sure what was going to happen when they saw each other. He knew what he wanted to happen, though.

Harry made an effort to stop his foot moving, and talk to Ron and Hermione. George had mentioned his plans for the Hogsmeade shop the night before, and it made a pleasant distraction speculating about what the shop would be like.

When Hagrid left at the end of lunch to collect students from Hogsmeade station though, Harry excused himself.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” he said. “Have some quiet before everyone gets back.”

He knew he would have to talk to them, soon. It was growing uncomfortable, not being totally honest with his two best friends. Harry stashed the thought away; it would be OK, and he deserved a private life as much as they did. At this moment the thing he needed more than anything else was to see Draco.

As it was, after a couple of weeks together, Ron and Hermione seemed happy enough to leave Harry to it.

With mounting butterflies in his stomach, Harry headed to the Room.

When he got to the corridor, the door wasn’t there. Barnabas the Barmy had his back to Harry, while the troupe of trolls were standing in a pyramid formation, their tutus quivering in an invisible breeze. He watched them for a moment, until the troll at the top saw him and waved, and the whole formation quivered and threatened to fall.

Barnabas turned and glowered at Harry, which made Harry less inclined to warn him that one of the trolls had pulled out a club and raised it high above his head.

Instead, he walked past where the door should be, thinking: _The Room with the stone trees_.

On his third walk past, the door reappeared.

He opened the door, fearful all of a sudden of finding the burnt-out husk again. Instead, the sight of the white forest of columns and twisting branches, meeting in a twirl of interconnected arches above his head greeted him, leaving him feeling dizzy with the sight. He had forgotten the sheer size of the room. Rather than feeling lifeless, the stone trees made it seem alive in a way it never had before, and he half-expected to hear birdsong as he stepped inside.

Once inside, Harry rested his hand on the smooth indent of his hand print on the door, before tracing Draco’s. He longed to do the same to Draco, had spent days and nights thinking about what it would be like to touch him.

But now he was here, Harry didn’t know what it would be like to actually see Draco again. Their messages had been terse, the marble and badge not being able to contain more than a few words at a time. But the few words they had exchanged had been enough to set a fire in Harry, a desire always for _more_.

 _I think about you_ had got Harry so hot and flustered he’d had to have a cold shower to be able to face Ron and Hermione. It had been ridiculous.

Looking around, apart from the forest-like columns and branches, the Room was mostly empty. However near the unlit fireplace, the Room had provided a heavily fringed lamp, a long, low sofa, with a book on self-Transfiguration on the seat cushion. Before he settled down to attempt to read while he waited, Harry pulled his Potter Stinks badge out from his pocket. Draco’s last message was still written on it: _See you tomorrow_. He smiled again at the words. Taking out his marble he thought for a moment, then sent the words _In the Room already_.

Sitting back with his book - although he was too nervous to focus on the words - Harry waited.

Harry had fallen into a vague reverie about what it might mean to be an Animagus like his dad, when a sound broke through thoughts of what it would be like to run free through the forest.

Draco stood silhouetted in the open door.

Harry’s heart immediately seemed to rise up to the vicinity of his throat. He stood, his legs moving of their own accord, then raised a hand and waved. “Hello,” he said.

Draco was walking to him faster than Harry could comprehend.

“Hello?” Draco said, sounding affronted. “Is that all you can say?”

“I—” Other words were refusing to come up. As were thoughts. But at the same time Harry’s body had turned to face Draco, as though pulled by some invisible force.

“No fucking clock this time,” Draco said. “Merlin, what’s wrong with you?” His steps faltered almost as he reached Harry. “Say something.”

Now he was close Harry could see the tightness in Draco’s face. Was Draco… worried?

“Hello,” Harry said again, like a numpty.

“Hello,” said Draco, next to Harry now. He sounded less annoyed, more quiet now. Expectant.

“This book is interesting,” Harry said, sitting back down as he didn’t know what else to do. “I think the Room’s trying to encourage us.” Harry didn’t know if the book was interesting, he’d not been able to read a word of it.

“I didn’t come here for a book, Harry.”

“I guess the Room’s fixed now,” Harry said. “What with the door and the lamp and book and everything.” Now the words had come unstuck he was babbling. The words he wanted to say were still locked in somewhere.

Draco sat down beside him. Close, but not near enough to be touching him with any part of his body.

“Are you really going to be like this?” Draco said.

Harry did not want to be like this. He had spent the past two weeks determined that he definitely wanted to kiss Draco again. And more. He looked up, and saw Draco watching him, the tight look still on his face.

“I—” Harry took a deep breath. “It’s good to see you,” he said, hoping the words would convey precisely how _much_ he had missed Draco.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Draco said. “You look”—his mouth parted a little as he took a little breath in—“rather tanned.”

“Oh. Yeah. It was very sunny.”

Draco looked rather like he wanted to thwack Harry over the head for being such an idiot, but being so near to Draco’s eyes was doing things to Harry’s brain. They held the light, much like his marble did when he held it up. Except his marble didn’t look at him this intensely.

Merlin, even his _thoughts_ made him sound like an idiot.

“So—”

“I wanted—”

They both spoke at once, smiled, then fell back into silence.

Was it Harry making it so awkward? Why hadn’t he jumped on Draco the minute he’d sat down? He’d been thinking about it for weeks. But it was strange, finally being together, and knowing that they were about to change everything between them. At least now they were being awkward together.

On some level Harry knew that whatever he’d told George the day before, _this_ was the moment when his life changed, the moment when he would be travelling away from ‘before’ and into ‘after’. There would be no going back once he and Draco made their friendship about… _more_ ; Harry’s life would include a part of himself that he finally felt OK to admit was there.

“It is good to see you,” Harry said again. And then he touched Draco’s hand, which was resting on the sofa between them, brushed it with the side of his fingers. He was instantly rewarded with an opening of the tightness of Draco’s face, and a soft smile.

Draco moved his fingers to touch Harry’s back, to stroke his hand. “Merlin,” he said, with a shaky laugh. “Surely this should be easier.”

“Maybe it is,” Harry said. And he took his hand up to Draco’s chin, pausing for one more look in those pale grey eyes before tilting Draco’s face towards his own. He saw the hope there, saw the wild leap of it that mirrored his own.

And then, with no need to hurry and yet all the yearning of two weeks’ worth of waiting - and to be honest, the months before, too - Harry kissed Draco. Draco’s lips were warm, and greeted him with a hunger that matched Harry’s.

A glow grew inside Harry as they kissed, warming his heart and his stomach and spreading through his body until his fingers felt warm, his toes were curling, and he felt as though he were melting. Draco’s hand found its way to Harry’s hip, and Harry’s hand had slid around from jaw into the short hair at the back of Draco’s head. _Mine_ Harry thought, pulling Draco even closer. Draco’s hand on his hip held him so firmly he was almost kneading Harry’s side.

Harry didn’t want to stop.

When they finally broke apart, breathing heavily, lips pink and wet, eyes wide, and hands still on each other, Draco grinned. “Now that’s a proper greeting.”

“I’ll remember that,” Harry said. “For next time.” Happiness bubbled up inside of him, his own smile broad. Before he could say anything else though, Draco had pulled him in for another kiss.

It was like drowning in light and warmth, in bubbles of pure joy. Harry could barely breathe but the sensations of kissing Draco, or touching the warmth of his neck and then his thigh and his back, were so overwhelming they were all that Harry was aware of for some time. He felt as though he could climb _into_ Draco in some way.

Panting, and aware that he was hard from kissing as well as almost vibrating with the closeness of Draco, Harry was finally ready to sit back and look at him. He kept one hand on Draco’s arm, while Draco’s hand was warm and possessive on Harry’s leg. Harry was very aware of just how close Draco was to a certain part of his anatomy. From the high colour in Draco’s cheeks and the rapidity of his breathing, it seemed Draco was similarly hot and bothered.

For a while they simply looked at each other. Harry felt something fall away in the directness of being able to look into the grey light of Draco’s eyes while Draco looked back.

“I… this feels right,” Harry said. “I’ve been thinking about this every day for the past two weeks.”

“You bastard, running off like that.”

“I needed some time.”

“To be sure?”

Harry shook his head. “I already was sure. I needed the time to be… honest with myself. I’ve never kissed a boy - a man - before.”

“Nor have I,” said Draco. He paused. “I’ve wanted to, though,” he said quietly. The way he was looking at Harry made Harry suspect that the boy Draco had wanted to kiss was _him_ , which was a lot to take in.

Harry’s breathing was slowly coming back to normal, but the buzzing feeling of being close to Draco, of _touching_ him hadn’t lifted.

Kissing Draco seemed to be the right thing to do, and when he did it he could feel it, feel the need they had for each other. The kissing intensified, becoming heated in a more direct way. They were now completely entangled, Draco’s shirt half undone, Harry’s t-shirt pulled up to reveal his stomach, and lying along the length of the sofa. As they kissed, Harry could feel the heat of Draco’s erection against his own, through their clothes. He arched into the feeling.

They both broke away from each other, breathing heavily.

“What are we going to do?”

“More kissing, I hope,” Draco said. He raised his eyebrows. “A return visit to the Prefects’ bathroom.”

Harry’s whole body twitched. He’d spent enough time thinking about what he would do if he could get Draco naked under the bubbles again. “I hope so,” Harry said, his erection now straining almost painfully against his trousers. “I was thinking about what I’d like to do to you right now though.”

Draco quivered beneath him.

He pulled Draco in for another kiss, taking the time to taste his mouth. “Yes,” he said, rubbing up against Draco’s groin slowly and deliberately

With a sound that was half gurgle, half yelp, Draco’s body rose up to meet Harry’s. His head fell back as Harry began to nuzzle at his neck.

There was a reason Harry had Sorted into Gryffindor, all those years back. The thought, as soon as it entered his mind, turned to action, and he brought his hand between them to feel where Draco’s cock was straining beneath him. It felt glorious, to feel Draco’s cock: swollen, hot, and constrained under his trousers.

Falling back into kissing, their kisses took on a new intensity. Harry wanted to devour Draco. Evidently, Draco felt the same, because before long Draco had flipped them over and was straddling him, and the two were rubbing even more intensely against each other. Harry’s dick was caught almost painfully in his pants, but he didn’t care as he felt the heat and pressure of Draco’s erection against his own.

 _More_ he thought, thrusting up. He his hand along the bare skin of Draco’s back. It was hot, his skin silk under Harry’s fingers, the hardness of hip and muscle different to being with a girl. Harry felt enveloped by Draco’s woody scent, and beneath it the more earthy air of arousal between them. Their pace picked up, both rutting; Harry knew that there was no stopping, there was nothing but the rhythm of their bodies together, and Draco’s hot breath on Harry’s neck, the kisses they drank from each other, and their hands on each others bodies.

Draco dug his thumb into Harry’s ribs, a gentle pressure on a firm place that went straight to Harry’s balls. Pressure grew in Harry’s thighs, a thunderbolt of heat that had nowhere to go but in an intense rush of release as he came.

Draco kept moving, pushing his crotch onto Harry’s even as Harry was thrusting with each spurting wrench of ejaculation. Then he too came, making a small noise almost like a cry. He dropped down onto Harry.

“Fuck,” Harry said, then kissed Draco once more.

“Fuck,” Draco agreed.

They lay back, panting. Harry was aware of the wetness in his pants, but he didn’t care. That was, hands down, the best fucking orgasm of his life.

A strange warm sensation travelled over his cock and balls.

“What the—”

“Cleaning Charm,” Draco said. “I thought everyone could do it wandless. All the boys, anyway.”

“I wasn’t expecting that!” Harry said. “And I don’t know what kind of orgies you had in Slytherin, but no, I don’t know that one.”

“Poor baby Gryffindor,” Draco said. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you.”

Harry moved until they were side by side, his arm around Draco.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” he said. A lazy boneless feeling was washing over him.

Draco kissed him again, lightly now that the intensity had found a release.

“What are we going to do?” Harry asked again. This time it wasn’t playful; he couldn’t see how this would all end.

Draco was quiet for a while. “We’ll work it out as we go along,” he said, and found Harry’s hand and squeezed it. “I would never have believed this was possible, and yet here we are.” He turned his head and brushed a kiss on Harry’s lips, and Harry shivered at the sensation. “We can worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

They ended up kissing and talking until the sky turned pink and purple, and they realised they would have to go down for dinner.

As so many times before, they arrived in the Hall together, and no one noticed. It was as though people only saw Harry as they entered a room. For the first time the way that eyes slid over Draco brought a pang to Harry’s heart: he didn’t want Draco to be ignored or shunned anymore.

***

Looking out of the window, Harry saw that tiny leaves covered the trees in green fuzz, and after a night’s rain the lake was freshly swollen, though still full of mystery. He turned back to the common room. Students filled the study tables: panic about the NEWTs had got them all busy, and the room had a claustrophobic air about it.

A part of Harry wasn’t in the room at all, though. It was still floating on the memories of the day before, on kissing Draco and the two of them rutting up against each other. He was hyper-aware of Draco sitting on the far side of the room; he felt every time Draco’s eyes fell on him, felt it as a heat rising through his body, a full blush that made him hot from toes to ears.

Harry could still feel Draco’s lips on his, Draco’s hands on his skin, and combined with sitting still for so long it made him feel as though he could climb out of his skin. The need to move was about more, he knew: it was also because he had made the decision to go for it with Draco and to be honest with himself, and he didn’t want to keep this a secret for much longer. There were two people who he wanted to tell, and he wouldn’t be able to relax until he had. Remembering what it had been like, entangled on the sofa with Draco, Harry squirmed. Perhaps Ron and Hermione didn’t need to know all the details.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said to Ron and Hermione. “Get some fresh air.”

They had been studying all morning, writing out lists of Potions ingredients and cross referencing them to the Potions they would have to make for their exams.

Ron stretched and yawned, and reached out to touch Hermione on the shoulder. “I could do with a break,” he said. “Clear my head a bit.”

She leant back into his hand, and he kneaded at her shoulder a bit. “I could do with that, too.” She sighed. “An open view of the sky might help. My hand is cramping a bit.”

In Harry’s opinion, no one should be studying until their hand cramped. A break wasn’t the only reason he wanted to go for a walk; he had been thinking about telling them… well, everything, for a while.

He was aware of Draco watching the three of them talk, felt the heat prickle through his body again. Did Draco know what Harry was going to do? He didn’t know.

“Let’s go now,” Harry said. “We can have lunch when we get back.”

Ron looked put out. “But—”

“You can get something for while we’re walking,” Hermione said. “I think Harry’s right, we need to get out.”

“You assume all I think about is food.”

Hermione gave him a level glance.

“Oh, fine then. I’ve worked up an appetite with all this work. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll see if they’ve got any pork pies in the kitchens,” Ron said. “Got to keep my strength up. Do you want anything?”

Both Harry and Hermione shook their heads.

“OK, meet you by the steps,” Ron said, and he packed up his stuff more quickly than Harry thought possible, and gave Hermione a quick kiss, then headed off.

Hermione packed up in a less haphazard manner, putting her things neatly away before joining Harry by the door. It was still cold enough to need a warm jacket, and Hermione was wearing a hat, too. Spring in Scotland was fresh in more ways than one.

Ron was indeed waiting for them when they got to the entrance of the castle, bearing a basket.

“You know what the house-elves are like,” he said. “I asked if they had a pork pie, and they insisted on packing a whole ruddy picnic. There’s hot chocolate for all of us.”

“Brilliant,” said Harry. His mind wasn’t on the thought of food though: his stomach was tied up in knots, and he couldn’t imagine eating anything.

“We can walk around the lake,” Hermione said, describing an old favourite walk. Harry was grateful that she had suggested a long walk: he suspected he might need the full amount of time to get to the point of what he wanted to say. “We can stop somewhere and warm up a bit if we need to.”

They set off, and it felt to Harry like it could be any spring day from the past seven years. They had walked around this lake as eleven-year-olds, and in some ways their friendship hadn’t changed in that time.

Seeing that Ron and Hermione were holding hands, it was clear that in other ways it had.

Harry kept the pace fast: he knew he wanted to tell them everything, but he couldn’t find the words, not yet. Soon he began to feel warm, and realised how fast he was going. He slowed a bit.

“Are you OK, mate?” Ron said. “Seemed like you were training for a race for a sec there.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Harry said. “I’m a bit nervous, that’s all.”

“The exams aren’t for another couple of months, Harry,” Hermione said. “You’ve got plenty of time—”

“It’s not that.” Harry swallowed, and his stomach turned over again. He walked on for a bit, hoping it would settle down. “There’s something I want to talk to you both about.”

Hermione took his arm, and he was grateful for her warmth. She always seemed to understand that what he needed sometimes was some human contact. He’d spent too many years without any.

“We’re here for you.”

“Thank you.”

From their right, ripples and a splash reminded them that the giant squid was there, too.

They walked on in silence for a while. Perhaps this was the difference that the years had made: they were capable of being silent together. They had all had to learn the importance of patience.

“The thing is,” Harry said, once the ripples had smoothed out again and the only sound was their feet on the muddy ground mingled with the call of birds from the forest, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently.” He was grateful for the cool touch of air on his face, and took a deep lungful before continuing. “There are some things I don’t think I had time to think about, before.” He didn’t have to say what before was. They all knew.

“It did take up a lot of our time, didn’t it,” said Hermione.

Ron snorted. “Slight understatement.”

Hermione squeezed Harry’s arm, and he knew she was squeezing Ron’s, too.

“I’ve realised something about myself. I, er.” Harry thought back to saying the words aloud to George. It would be easier this time. “I’m bisexual.” The word seemed to fill the still air around them.

“Oh,” Hermione said. The exact same response as George; was everyone going to say the same thing every time Harry had to come out? And how many times was that going to be, exactly?

“Are you sure?” Ron said.

Hurt stung Harry’s throat for a second that Ron needed to ask, but then Harry thought back to his time in the Room with Draco the day before, and it eased. He nodded.

“OK, then,” Ron said. He paused. “I thought you were going to say you had Spattergroit or something.”

“What do you mean, ‘Spattergroit’,” said Hermione. “This is important.” She stopped walking, forcing all three of them to stop. “Harry,” she said, letting go of Ron and holding onto Harry’s hands with both of her own. “I’m so happy for you,” she smiled. “I had no idea, but it makes sense. I love you, and I’m glad you’ve been able to work this out.” And then she enveloped him in a bear hug. “Thank you for telling us.”

Harry sank into the warmth of Hermione’s hug, her frizzy hair tickling his nose as she held onto him. He’d been carrying so much tension about this, and he could feel some of it easing out. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair.

She answered by holding onto him even more tightly.

When they broke apart, Ron was smiling. “Yeah, what she said.” He gave Harry a soft punch on the arm. “You’re my mate, whatever.” His smile became a little more solemn. “Sorry, someone once told me I had the emotional depth of a teaspoon, I could have responded better than that.”

It was so much better than Harry had thought it would go, although there was still the other thing he wanted to tell them. His heart dropped at the thought that there was still the potential for Ron to combust or push him away.

“Do you need anything from us?” Hermione said. “I mean, do you want to talk about it, or is it enough that we know? It’s up to you, of course.”

“Thanks,” Harry said. “Maybe… no questions, for now.” He let out a big huff of breath. “It’s already been a lot to tell you this.” And he didn’t want to have to answer questions about Ginny, or hear again about Charlie. This, for once, was only about him. Maybe for this reason he didn’t want to mention Draco quite yet. The rolling in his stomach told him that he had to, soon. But a little while longer wouldn’t hurt.

They continued walking again, with Hermione in the middle holding onto both of them. When they reached the far end of the lake they stopped, and looked back at the castle.

“I can’t believe it’s nearly over,” Hermione said. “We’ve been here for so long.”

Harry looked back at Hogwarts. It had been home for such a long time, and he wasn’t sure where home would be after this.

There were some black rocks along the lakeshore at this end, and some were big enough to sit on. By mutual agreement they stopped for a rest, and for Ron to eat his pork pie. Harry and Hermione didn’t take theirs, but shared out the flask of hot chocolate the elves had provided for them.

Holding onto a steaming enamel mug, Harry decided it was now or never. “You know you asked me if there was anything else I needed from you?” Harry said. “There is more.” He took a sip of the hot chocolate, which was perfectly warm and sweet. “And I’m not sure how you’re going to react to this part.”

He settled his mug on the rock beside him, and turned to face Ron and Hermione. “The reason I know I’m bisexual, is because I’ve realised I like… well boys, as well as girls. Or rather, men as well as women.” He swallowed: this was hard to say. But then he thought of the way that Draco had looked at him across the room, trusting and vulnerable at the same time. He owed it to Draco to be honest. And he owed it to himself: he didn’t want to be creeping around keeping secrets anymore.

“And… there’s one person who I like. And he likes me back.” He closed his eyes. “This is the bit you’re not going to like,” Harry warned.

“You don’t know how we’re going to react until you actually say it,” Ron said gently. Harry suspected Hermione hadn’t been entirely right with her teaspoon comment.

Harry opened his eyes, but stared out across the dark waters of the lake. His heart had sped up, but he knew there was no way out of this except to say it aloud.

“It’s Draco. Malfoy,” he added, as though they wouldn’t know who he was talking about.

There was an audible intake of breath from Hermione, but neither she nor Ron said anything.

Harry chanced a look at them. Ron was frowning, his ears bright red, and Hermione was looking at Harry as though he were a puzzle to work out. Neither had stormed off, so it was already better than he’d feared. There was time for that, though.

It was with considerable relief that Harry watched Ron take an enormous bite out of his pork pie. If Ron could eat, it was OK.

“Draco Malfoy?” Ron said through a mouthful of pie. “I didn’t see that one coming.” He chewed thoughtfully. “I suppose you two always did have a very intense way of relating to each other. And objectively speaking, he has quite an air about him, doesn’t he? Mystery and all that.”

Harry stared at Ron as though he’d never seen him before. Was Ron really saying that he could understand that Draco was attractive? That Harry could find him attractive? Which he did, of course. Very much so.

“I thought you’d be angry,” Harry said.

“I’m not going to lie,” Ron said, swallowing down his mouthful. “It’s a bit of a shock. But then it makes sense, too.” He smiled ruefully. “If you’d told me at the beginning of the year I would have been angry, maybe. But Malfoy’s not who he was, is he?”

“No,” said Harry, because it was simpler than saying he was and he wasn’t.

“When?” Hermione asked. “He never talks to anyone.”

“He talks to me,” Harry said. He sighed. There was more to tell his friends, and he realised just how much he’d been holding back from them. “You know how I’ve been helping to finish the repairs to the school?”

They both nodded. Harry had not been the only one: Neville spent a fair of his time working on the parts of the castle exterior that were still damaged.

“Draco and I have been working on the same part of it. Not entirely with permission.” As in without any permission at all, but he wasn’t going to admit that, yet.

Hermione chewed at her lip. “Is this what you were brooding about while we were away? The thing you didn’t know if it was going to work out or not?”

“Yes.” Harry nodded; he remembered their chat by waters much warmer than these, and how gentle and understanding she’d been then.

“It’s all very new, then,” she said, a look of understanding crossing her face. “Oh, Harry.”

“It took me a while to be able to admit any of this to myself.” Harry took in a shaky breath. He felt all wobbly all of a sudden, and had to steady himself on his rock. “Um, if you don’t mind, that’s enough questions for now.”

“Of course.”

He knew that he’d have to tell them about the Room, but that space was still his and Draco’s, and he wasn’t ready to share it yet.

Once they’d finished their hot chocolates the three of them walked back towards the castle along the other shore. Eventually Harry let Ron and Hermione fall back, and hurried back to the castle on his own. He could see that they needed some time to talk to each other about everything he’d told them.

His stomach was calmer; instead he was left with a shaky sense of relief and the glimmer of hope that maybe this would be OK, after all.

***

When Harry walked into the common room after lunch - where he had been much reassured to see that Ron’s appetite was undiminished- and saw Draco sitting alone with a book on one of the sofas, he made a decision. Rather than go to sit elsewhere, he went to join Draco.

Draco put his book down and looked at Harry.

“What are you doing?”

“Saying hello.” Harry smiled, because what else could he do when he was this near to Draco? He knocked his knee into Draco’s, and saw the small start that went through Draco. He left their knees touching. Draco didn’t move his away, but pressed back.

“You look more relaxed,” Draco said.

“I’ve been on a walk. With Ron and Hermione.”

“I saw you leave.”

“I told them. That I was,” Harry lowered his voice, not ready to announce this to the rest of the eighth years quite yet, “Bisexual.”

“Is that what it is?”

Harry nodded. “Is that OK?”

“Yes,” Draco said. “Very much so.” He smiled.

“Oh, good,” Harry said. “We didn’t really talk much yesterday, did we?”

“We had other distractions.”

Harry shifted, remembering what they were. He was aware of the pink coming into Draco’s cheeks, and knew he was remembering too.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, they were fine with it. And… I also told them that I liked you, and you liked me back.”

Draco rolled his eyes, but looked pleased at the same time. “Trust you to come up with such a childish way of putting it.”

“You don’t mind?” Harry said.

“No,” Draco said. “I— You would never be happy keeping secrets from them. And I do, you know. Not mind: like you, too.”

Harry smiled back at him, realising he was probably wearing as foolishly happy an expression as Draco.

Before they could say anything else, the sofa shook as Anthony came to sit with them, while Ernie plonked himself onto one of the other sofas.

“What are you two losers talking about then?” Anthony asked. “Only joking!” he said, when he saw the look on Harry’s face, and ruffling Harry’s hair as though to prove it.

“Quidditch,” both Harry and Draco responded at the same time.

“We were just talking about the Kestrels,” Ernie said. “Anthony doesn’t think they stand a chance, but I’m not so sure.”

Ernie and Anthony batted back and forward about Quidditch for a while, with Harry only having to pipe up occasionally, and Draco not at all. Anthony sitting down had pushed them closer together, and Harry could feel how Draco’s whole body had stiffened up while the others talked. Harry gave what he hoped was a reassuring nudge to Draco’s leg with his own, and saw Draco shoot him a small grateful smile. But he didn’t relax at all.

“Sherbet lemon?” Ernie asked.

“Hmm?” Harry looked up. Ernie was leaning over to their sofa, holding out a pink and white striped bag.

Harry looked inside: it was full of sherbet lemons. He took one, as did Anthony.

“Go on, Draco,” Ernie said, shaking the bag in front of Draco. “Take one.”

Draco took one, his movement stiff and awkward. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” added Anthony and Harry.

Harry watched Draco pop the sweet in his mouth and begin to suck. Harry’s breath seemed to get stuck in his throat at the sight. Beside him he could hear Anthony crunching his sweet, unaware of the cruel beauty of seeing a Malfoy suck on a boiled sweet. Draco was, Harry suspected, making more of a meal of it than needed. It was working, too: Harry’s breath seemed to get stuck in his throat at the sight.

Harry cleared his throat. “They were Dumbledore’s favourites, you know,” he said. “Sherbet lemons.”

Draco froze mid-suck, and he turned to glare at Harry, and Harry grinned, satisfied he’d got his revenge.

Anthony crunched on, oblivious.

“How’d you know that?” Ernie asked, ever curious.

“He told me once,” Harry said, and then he was quiet, remembering what it had been like in those moments Dumbledore had taken him into his confidence. How he’d clung to them; how deep his need had been to have answers. With Draco beside him, he remembered too that even on the night he had died, Dumbledore had still believed in Draco. Maybe he’d seen some hint of how Draco could be if he were free from the hold of his family.

Not knowing what else to say, Harry popped his own sweet in his mouth. The sharp sour-sweet of the sherbet lemon caught Harry by surprise, as it always did. He touched the sweet with the tip of his own tongue, thinking that this was what the inside of Draco’s mouth tasted like right now.

Even with Ernie and Anthony there, Harry couldn’t stop thinking about kissing Draco.

Hermione came to join them, taking a sherbet lemon for herself. Harry was aware that she was looking at him and Draco sitting side by side, knowing that they were together.

This was madness - them all sitting here together. Why was he complicating his life like this? But then Harry felt Draco’s warmth by his side, and the desire to lick him like a sherbet lemon. It was torture, not being able to reach out and touch him, but although Harry had told Ron and Hermione he couldn’t imagine how it would be to be out in front of all the others.

A small part of himself shrank inside, at the thought that he couldn’t be more open. And yet it was all so difficult. Normally, the fact that the four of them were sitting together, eating sweets and talking would be progress enough.

Draco left first, then Ernie and Anthony.

“How could I have not noticed before?” Hermione said.

Harry shrugged. “It took me a while to notice myself, so don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“You looked like you wanted to eat him up!”

Harry blushed. He was not going to be talking to Hermione about what he wanted to do to Draco.

“I’m pleased for you, Harry, I am. I saw the way he was looking at you, too.”

“Yeah?” Harry asked, despite himself.

“Yeah.”

***

When Harry next walked into the Room, the sconces were lit, casting strange shadows from the stone branches that climbed up walls and columns. A small fire burned in the grate, and the Room was perfectly balanced between warm and cool.

The mirror was back, as was the sofa. This time, he noticed it was sitting on a thick rug. Before he could think why this might be, the door opened and Draco stepped through.

“Remind me never to eat a sweet in front of you again,” Draco said.

“You were a horrible tease,” Harry said. “What choice did I have?”

After a lengthy kiss leaning up against the door, they stood there grinning at each other. As much as Harry wanted to keep going, he was aware of the mirror, and had an idea that it would be a good idea for them to practise some magic. Some days it felt as though the room _wanted_ them to practise magic. He couldn’t quite say why he felt it, but it was there, like an itch just beneath his skin.

“So what are we going to do today, then?”

Draco raised an eyebrow, and holding onto the top of Harry’s trousers, drew Harry closer.

“Not only that,” Harry said, although he brought his hands back to Draco’s sides. “I want to practise more of the self-Transfiguration stuff.”

“In that case,” Draco said, “it depends how brave you’re feeling.”

“I’m feeling pretty brave.”

Draco took a step back, and began pacing. “Do you remember what Krum did in the second task of the Triwizard Championship?”

“Do I— I was there, you know.”

Draco stopped. “And you looked very fetching in your underwear.”

“Shut up,” Harry said. “You were not ogling me in my underwear when we were in fourth year.”

Draco stared steadily at him, as though seeing him again in his underwear, until Harry felt a blush rising.

“You’re right,” Draco said. “I wasn’t ogling you. Why should I, when Cedric Diggory was wandering around in his undercrackers, too?”

Harry shoved Draco. “You never.”

“Oh, I assure you, I did. I think what happened to him was the beginning of every doubt I had about Voldemort. Such a waste.”

“It horrifies me that I don’t know whether you are serious or not.”

Draco shrugged. “I’m no Hufflepuff, you know that about me.”

“Krum,” Harry said. “We were talking about Krum.”

“He wasn’t bad in his undercrackers, either. But that wasn’t why I mentioned him. It was the shark head. Do you want to try Transfiguring ourselves like that?”

“If we manage the Animagus transformation, it will probably match our Patronuses,” Harry said. “I’ll be a stag, and you a snowy owl.”

“Let’s not try those forms,” Draco said. “I’d like a chance to be something different.”

“How do we decide?”

“You know how we’ve been practising going back to our natural state?” Draco said. “What about doing the reverse? What about encouraging a transformation and seeing what happens?”

“McGonnagall was saying something about that the other day, wasn’t she?”

Draco nodded. “She said that the easiest self-transformations were where we use some part of ourselves, something that chimes with who we are.”

“It still sounds risky though, not knowing.”

“Scared, Potter?”

It was so ridiculous hearing those words from Draco’s mouth now that Harry couldn’t help laughing. “OK then, we can give it a go.”

“I have this feeling that the Room won’t let anything bad happen to us,” Draco said. “Is that strange?”

Harry looked around at the white branches, arching and twining above them. “No, it doesn’t. We’re _in_ this room somehow. Part of it.”

Draco went first. Harry wasn’t sure where this more foolhardy part of him came from, but seeing Draco bright-eyed and eager lifted his heart and made him feel like anything was possible.

Standing in front of the mirror, Draco closed his eyes and Harry watched as his face and body relaxed. They referred to this as finding themselves; starting and ending with a sense of who they were, inside and out, seemed to help.

Nothing happened for a while, but Draco still had his eyes closed so Harry waited. After a while, Draco raised his wand hand and whispered something, and then slowly began to change. First his hair thickened and lengthened, darkening in colour to a honey gold. His chin and nose grew less pointy, and they too seemed touched with a hint of gold.

Whiskers sprouted from Draco’s chin, thickening up until he had a full mane around his face. Harry opened his mouth in surprise, and took a step back as though a little more distance would make it easier to take in: Draco had the head of a lion.

Draco opened his eyes, which widened as he caught sight of himself in the mirror. A growl of surprise escaped his lips.

Harry didn’t dare make a sound; he didn’t want to upset the balance of magic, or distract Draco from his transformation.

Draco growled again, this time watching his reflection. His top lip curved over sharp teeth, and he turned to Harry before licking his tongue over them.

It was with some difficulty that Harry bit down on his own lip to stop himself from reacting.

The reverse transformation was quicker. The mane disappeared, along with the sharp teeth and big pink tongue. Once Draco’s own pointy features were restored he turned back to Harry.

“Don’t say a word,” he said. “I could see you, trying not to laugh.”

“I wasn’t trying not to laugh,” Harry said. “I mean, maybe a little.” He shook his head. “That is, it’s not every day that you discover that Draco Malfoy, arch-Slytherin, has an inner Gryffindor side.”

“My transformation into a lion has nothing to do with school Houses,” Draco sniffed. “Lions happen to be majestic creatures, often allied with dragons.”

“Inner Gryffindor,” Harry said.

Draco caught Harry up in a hug. “You’re the only Gryffindor allowed inside me,”

“Is that a promise?” Harry said, running his hand up Draco’s back.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ravish you here and now. But… maybe we could… you know, try some stuff out?”

Harry felt shy but hopeful all at once. And horny, he couldn’t deny it. Draco seemed to understand, because he pulled Harry into a tighter embrace.

“You are a terrible distraction,” he said, kissing Harry behind his ear. Draco’s breath was hot on Harry’s neck.

“Is that a yes?”

Draco ground up against Harry, so Harry could feel his growing erection. “Is that the answer you want?”

Although Harry had said he wasn’t going to ravish Draco, it was hard to think of much else. “You’re the distraction,” Harry said, kissing Draco until they were both breathing hard and half-rutting up against each other.

The chiming of the clock broke them apart.

“We don’t have to be anywhere, do we?” Harry asked. The Room must have put the clock there for a reason.

“That fucking clock,” Draco said. “Cockblocking clock.”

“Clockblocking.”

“Oh Merlin, I’ve fallen for a man who makes terrible jokes.”

“You’ve fallen for me?”

“What else do you call this? You ridiculous mess of a former Gryffindor.”

“I’d be careful how you throw Gryffindor around as an insult,” Harry said. “Bit close to home, isn’t it?”

“Maybe it’s your turn.”

“My turn?” Harry said, not understanding.

“Your turn to try transforming your head,” Draco said. “I’m going to sit down. Someone”—he gave Harry a pointed look—“has messed up my hair, and all my clothes.”

While Draco tucked himself back into his usual neat self, Harry looked at his own reflection in the mirror. He was scruffy, and a bit of a mess. Of course, this was partly because he and Draco had been half-pulling each other’s clothes off, but even after he straightened them he still resembled a crow’s nest.

Harry closed his eyes, and focused on what it felt like to be him. He knew his outside was messy, but on the inside he felt a warm glow of happiness, and a low down feeling of solidity. He leaned into this feeling, noticing how it seemed to ground him in the earth. Taking a deep breath and then releasing it, he tried to see if that feeling was like an animal. He felt, rather than saw, scruffy black fur, large paws on the ground. Putting all of that sensation into one spot, Harry pointed his wand at himself and said the words to transform himself.

The transformation itself felt odd: a stretching of skin and bone, the prickling of hair growing, and the earthed feeling on the outside rather than the inside. It hurt, a little, but the pain was forgotten as soon as it was complete.

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the large shaggy black head of a dog staring back at him.

He opened his mouth, and a pink tongue flopped out. Harry grinned, and watched his dog-reflection do the same. The clock ticking seemed especially loud, and Harry realised that with a dog’s head had come a dog’s sense of hearing. What other senses were heightened? Sniffing the air, Harry could smell the echoes of smoke, the traces of lost things, but above all the woody scent of Draco’s skin. And like a stream of heat within it all, Draco’s arousal from before. It hadn’t gone away; Harry could smell it still on Draco like a heady drug.

Turning his attention back on himself, Harry took one last look at his reflection then closed his eyes, and focused once more on his own Harry-ness. He saw in his mind’s eye his glasses, his scar, his scruffy hair, but also the feeling of longing to touch Draco. The pain of transformation came and went again as his face returned to normal.

“A dog?” Draco asked.

“Sirius,” Harry said. “He was an Animagus. I… he was like family. I thought I was going to live with him. He took the form of a black dog.”

“So you turned into some father figure?”

“I guess.”

Harry came to sit with Draco, seeking out the warmth of Draco’s side.

“After doing that… I think I could be an Animagus.”

“Yeah, me too. I wonder how the others are doing?”

“Without all the extra practice, not as well.”

“It does take practice. And time. And the stuff George told me about, that’s helped, too.”

Draco kissed Harry on the top of the head. “I think this has helped as well. Us.”

“How’s that?”

“I always knew I was gay, but I thought I’d have to hide it all my life. Marry a good little pureblood witch, have a little Malfoy son to make my father proud.”

“You might have had a daughter.”

“I would have had to have kept going until I had a son.”

“That sounds grim,” Harry said.

“I don’t know if you understand what it means to me, to have this, here, with you,” Draco said. “But for the first time, maybe ever, I feel I can be a more honest version of myself.”

“I didn’t think I was going to live past my eighteenth birthday,” Harry said. “I didn’t think I’d be able to end up with anyone. I certainly didn’t think I’d be hiding away in the Room of Requirement, making out with you.”

Draco kissed him on the lips, softly.

Before long, the neatly tucked-in clothes were once more untucked.

Harry sensed, rather than saw, a ripple of light or… satisfaction… travelling around the room. He pulled back from Draco. “I think the Room likes us doing all this stuff,” Harry said.

“Oh yes?”

“Can’t you feel its… smugness?”

“I suppose it is the ultimate form of cooperation.”

Harry snorted at this. “And I guess we were the unlikeliest pair to come together like this.”

“Tell me more of this coming together,” Draco said, rubbing a hand across Harry’s crotch.

Harry kissed him, hard and deep, then slid onto the floor. He’d known the Room had put the rug there for a reason.

“What are you doing?” Draco said, his voice breathy and rising.

“I want to suck you off,” Harry said.

Draco replied by letting his legs fall apart. His knees though, were trembling. Harry ran his hands up Draco’s thighs, and the trembling intensified.

Harry kissed along Draco’s legs, then began to undo his trousers. He could still smell the intoxicating scent of his arousal from before, a sort of sense-memory that mingled with the touch of fabric on his face, the warmth of Draco’s skin, and then the heat of Draco, hard under his mouth.

With no idea of what he was doing, but a clear and aching need to touch Draco with his tongue, to taste him and to take him into his mouth, Harry began. And once he began, he didn’t want to stop.

As Draco groaned, and his head fell back against the sofa, fine stone leaves burst forth from the white branches above them.

***

“How can you be friends with him now?” Susan asked. “I see you with him all the time now.”

Harry had been waiting for a conversation like this. Telling Ron and Hermione about him and Draco had given them both the courage to talk to each other outside of the Room. But he’d noticed how people looked at them when he and Draco sat together at meal times, or in the common room.

“He’s changed,” Harry said.

“I don’t think people can change that much,” Susan said. “He did terrible things.”

“And he’d be the first to admit it,” Harry said. “He does know everything he did. And… I think the thing I worked out is that he’s more himself now. The person he could have been, without all the horrible stuff his parents taught him.”

“Madam Pince said something like that, too.” Hannah frowned. “She said that the thing about taking sides is that it stops us seeing each other for who we really are.” She sighed. “I’m not sure I believe it though.”

“You spoke to her, then?”

Susan nodded. “I pop in to see her every now and then. It does help. Sometimes it gets a bit much, all of us cooped in here together.”

Harry thought about his talks with George. It was good to have someone else to talk to, someone outside of the little group of eighth years.

“If you ever wanted to, you could try talking to Draco directly.”

Susan blanched. “Just because you’re all pally with Malfoy doesn’t mean I want to be.”

“You don’t have to be friends with him. But maybe both of you need to have a chance to talk about this. To listen to what the other one has to say.”

“I don’t know,” Susan said. “Maybe. It’s all still very difficult for me, OK?”

“OK,” said Harry. “But you’re right, I am friends with him now.”

“You like him.”

Harry didn’t know if she meant as a friend, or if she had guessed there was more going on between the two of them. “I do,” he said, in answer to both.

“You seem happier,” she said, then sighed again. “Why does this all have to be so hard?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “But if I have a chance to be happy, I think I deserve to take it. We all do.” He swallowed. “It’s taken me all year to work that out, and I want the same for you. I think you deserve to be happy, too.”

“Of course I do,” she said. “But right now I’m sad and angry.”

“You can be those things,” Harry said, “and also have moments of happiness.”

“I guess,” she said. She closed her eyes. “This is helping,” she said. “I wanted to be angry with you, Harry, but I’m feeling strangely calm right now.”

“I want you to be happy,” he repeated.

“I know,” she said. “Give me time.”

***

April fell into May; frothy blossom gave way to a greenery that sprang over the trees almost from one day to the next. The anniversary of the final battle at the school - the papers called it _The Battle of Hogwarts_ fell on a Sunday, and the school gathered quietly in the hall to commemorate it.

When they walked in, the students gasped: the teachers had brought trees into the hall, so it became a kind of forest, filled with new life.

Looking around, Harry realised that this was what the school had given him: new life, and hope for the future. Summer was on its way, and with it the chance for the life he never thought he’d have. He never would have thought a year before, battle-weary and full of grief, that things could change in this way. He looked over at Draco, who was sitting chatting to Ernie, of all people, his back upright but a lightness about him that was new.

They had all worked hard this year, he realised, all repairing bits of the castle and themselves as they went. So much had changed, he wondered what life would look like in another year.

“I’ve been thinking,” Harry said later that night. He and Draco were sitting on the sofa in the Room, both reading study books, with Draco’s socked feet resting in Harry’s lap.

“About how to avoid revising?” Draco said. “You can’t distract me again. Not unless you try, very hard.”

Harry had plenty of ideas about how he could distract Draco - he often thought of them, late at night in his bed with the curtains drawn and his hand wrapped around himself. He shifted, and Draco raised a knowing eyebrow at him but said nothing.

“I think it’s time,” Harry said. This was serious, and much as he loved a bit of distraction, he needed to say this. “We can’t keep this room our secret anymore.”

“Oh.” The playful look faded from Draco’s face, to be replaced by a more sombre one.

“It’s bothering me that being true to ourselves involves sneaking around in secret,” Harry said. “And when I saw the hall like that today, with all the trees, I realised…”

“They were like the stone trees in here,” Draco said.

Harry nodded.

Draco put his book aside and sighed. “I like having a space that’s just ours.” He sounded sad.

“It’s not though, is it - not ours, not really,” Harry said. “It’s part of the school.”

“And we’re part of it,” Draco said. “We’re in this room, I think a part of us always will be.”

“I know,” Harry said. He could feel it, around them. “But we’ll be leaving in a couple of months.”

Draco went very still, and Harry gave his feet a reassuring squeeze.

“I still want to be with you,” Harry said. “That is, if you still want to be with me, after school finishes.”

“I do,” Draco said, “I do.”

“Do you know what you want to do?”

“I… I find it hard to imagine what I can do next. I don’t think I’m very welcome here.”

“Here?”

“Britain. People know who I am.” Harry’s heart dropped, but he knew it was true. Susan was only one person, but there were others out there who felt the same. He didn’t know what Draco would have to do to be accepted; maybe it would never be possible. And yet he wanted it, wanted to be able to have Draco by his side. Openly.

“Do you… I have a house. In London. It’s really well warded.” He could imagine the house opening to welcome back a Black. Kreacher would be beside himself with joy. “Would you… I have the space… would you like to come there, with me?”

“You’re asking me to live with you?”

Harry nodded. Now he’d thought of it, he wanted it more than he could say. He’d half imagined living with the Weasleys after school was over, but the thought of he and Draco with Grimmauld Place to themselves… he laughed.

“What is it?”

“It’s an old, magical house. Run-down and neglected. Maybe what worked here will work there?” He rubbed Draco’s foot again, and waggled his eyebrows.

“You are incorrigible.”

“You’re not complaining.”

“I’m not. What about your plans…? I thought you were going to join the Aurors.”

“I did want to,” Harry said. “Now I want to rest.” He thought back to what it had been like to sit by the sea, the sun on his face. “Maybe travel a bit.” He smiled shyly at Draco. “You could come with me, if you wanted to.”

“I… As long as it’s with you.”

Harry knew what Draco meant. Wherever he went, he hoped that Draco would be there too.

“So are we going to say goodbye to this, to being alone here together?” Draco said. He looked around. “I’m going to miss it.”

“We can still come here,” Harry said. “I suspect the Room will keep the door locked if we want it to.”

“You’re right, it would,” Draco said. He sighed. “This year has felt as though it could go on and on, but it won’t, will it?”

It wouldn’t. But at least now Harry had an idea of where he would go next.

Draco sat up, pulling Harry into a kiss, and then Draco touched his knee, grasping firmly then more softly, as though trying to discern the shape and size of Harry’s kneecap. The effect was instantaneous: desire grew heavy in the back of Harry’s neck, a thick curling that pulled in his breath and stopped his thoughts.

Draco’s hand moved again, so gentle on Harry’s skin. Harry closed his eyes, savoured the delicious drag of it.

“Draco,” he said. “Draco.”

“Shh,” Draco said, and then leant forward into a kiss again.

Although they had kissed, for what had seemed like hours, then come, hard and fast against each others’ hands and mouths over the past few weeks, the mood was different now. They took their time, looking at each other as they slowly removed each other’s clothing.

This time, they left their final two handprints on the room: side by side, against the wall. They had moved slowly against each other, taken care of each other. This too, was theirs alone.

***

Harry and Draco met Ron and Hermione as they were coming out of the library.

“It’s Draco’s birthday,” Harry said. He’d asked the house-elves for a cake. They’d provided him with a pink cake, with purple ruffles all down the sides, and four slim golden candles in the top. It was perfect, and Harry had stashed it away in the Room earlier in the day. “We were wondering if you’d like to come with us for a slice of cake?”

“You didn’t mention there’d be cake,” Draco said.

“It’s your birthday, of course there’s cake,” Harry said.

“Where is this cake then?” Hermione said. “There better be enough to share with everyone.”

“It’s not in the common room,” Harry said. He looked at Draco, who nodded. “It’s in the room we go to, when we’re not around.”

“It better not be a love shack,” Ron said.

Harry ignored him. It was a love shack, but he was pretty sure his friends had one too.

“You are finally going to let us in on your secret place?” Hermione said. “The two of you go all quiet and mysterious whenever you talk about where you go.”

Harry nodded. “Also we are going to sing to Draco, and make him blow out his candles.”

“OK,” she said. “Lead the way.”

***

It was still light when they got to the seventh floor corridor, a thin bright evening light that flooded the space. One of the trolls waved at Harry as they got to the tapestry opposite the blank wall.

“The Room of Requirement?” Ron said. “Really?”

“But it was wrecked! Not even the professors could repair it. We saw it, together,” Hermione said.

“I know. It… it’s changed now. I was telling the truth when I said I was working on repairing part of the castle.”

“But it was with Draco, all along?” Ron said slowly.

“Yes.”

Harry walked past the blank wall three times, conscious of the others watching. With each pass he thought the familiar phrase: ‘I need the Room with the stone forest.”

On his third pass, the door appeared.

Harry and Draco stood back, and let Hermione and Ron enter by themselves.

“It’s not ours anymore,” Draco said, outside the door.

“I know,” Harry said, taking his hand. “But what you said before was also true: we are part of the room. We always will be.”

Together, they joined Ron and Hermione.

Hermione was standing still in the centre of the Room, craning her head to look up at the ceiling. “It’s not the same room,” she said. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

“It is, and it isn’t,” Harry said. It was, he realised, the same way he thought of Draco: the same person, and not.

Ron was walking around the room, touching the stone trunks, branches, and leaves.

“This is incredible,” he said. “How did you do it?”

“We didn’t,” Draco said. “The Room did.”

The four of them sat together - the Room having doubled the number of sofas - and Ron burst out laughing when he saw the cake. Hermione elbowed him and he stopped.

“Happy Birthday, Draco,” Hermione said. Harry realised that although he knew Draco, his friends didn’t, not really. Hermione was making a great effort, and, so he realised, was Ron. They were doing it for him, he knew, but he hoped that in the end they too would come to appreciate Draco for who he was.

Once they’d slightly awkwardly sung Happy Birthday, and slightly less awkwardly all had a slice of cake - cake did make Ron happy - they talked through all that had happened to repair the room. Harry and Draco explained about Fiendfyre and magic, about how the room had gradually grown the stone trees and had not appeared to them in any other form than this one. Draco described the effect of their magic, Harry the effect of their cooperation.

Hermione’s stream of questions was directed equally at Harry and Draco, for which Harry was grateful: some made Harry’s head hurt in their complexity. He was proud, too, of how gracefully and intelligently Draco kept up with the questions. At one point, Draco and Hermione began to work through the finer details of magical theory, and Harry sat back.

“Lucky you ended up with someone like him,” Ron said. “It’ll keep Hermione happy for hours having him to talk to.”

It was the closest Harry had come to receiving a seal of approval for Draco, and he decided he would take it.

By the time the room was dark, Hermione was clear about what they needed to do next. Harry met Draco’s eye, and they nodded at each other. It was time.

***

McGonagall looked down at the two of them. Behind her headmasters from the past watched on from their portraits. Dumbledore was not one of them; he was behind Harry and Draco, and so far had said little.

“So, you are telling me that the two of you have managed to do what none of the Professors could do, and repaired the Come and Go Room?”

Harry had forgotten that was what the house-elves called it.

“Yes, Professor,” Draco said. “Or at least, it’s recovered in its own way. I don’t think it will ever be quite the same.”

“I had noticed that you had overcome your differences,” McGonagall said. “But this is quite a claim to be making.”

“We can show you,” Harry said.

“And how exactly did you repair the room that did not want to be repaired?” McGonagall asked. “It repelled all attempts to repair or even clear it last summer.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat. Maybe McGonagall didn’t need to know _all_ the details.

“It was the fact that we cooperated, Professor,” Draco said.

“It started when we shook hands, and agreed to work together,” Harry added. “And then the more we used magic, the more it seemed to get better.”

“What kind of magic?” She asked sharply.

“We only practised our charms,” Harry said.

“Which ones?”

“Protean Charm, Patronus Charm, and, er, the self-Transfiguration work we were doing with you.”

“A little bit of light magic,” she said dryly. “I see.”

“It was like the room sort of… drank it up,” Harry said. “Er, Hermione has a theory.”

“Oh, yes?”

“We’ve been working on it together,” Draco said. “Although it was actually Harry who worked it out initially.”

Between them, they laid it all out: the idea that the Room itself had put out the Fiendfyre, using up most of its magic and damaging itself in the process. The efforts of the professors hadn’t worked because the room was hurt, and defending itself from further harm.

“We tried to clear it,” McGonagall said, “But nothing would work properly: simple Vanishing Spells did not work.”

Harry and Draco looked at each other. Vanishing Spells had worked for them, but only after some Muggle-style sweeping.

“I think the room needed to know it was cared for,” Harry said, “Before anyone started using magic on it.”

“We earned its trust slowly,” Draco said. “I think it likes us.”

“What they say makes sense, Minerva.” Dumbledore’s voice came from behind them, and Harry turned to see him looking at the two of them. “I would like to know what has happened to the room.”

McGonagall looked at Dumbledore’s portrait, then between the two of them. “Well, I have to say it, you have surprised me. I need to see what you have done to the room, but if what you say is true… it has ramifications for the other parts of the castle that remain resistant to repair.”

“All the magic we practised,” Harry said, “it was like it was fuel, helping to rebuild its own magic. And, er, it doesn’t look the same as before.”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“Perhaps you’d better see for yourself.”

***

McGongall’s reaction was more extreme than Ron and Hermione’s. She had to sit down - the Room provided a stiffly upholstered chair - and take several deep breaths before she could speak.

“Can’t you feel the magic?” she said. “It’s everywhere.”

Harry and Draco turned and looked around the Room. It felt much the same as it always did.

“Of course,” she said. She closed her eyes. “It’s _your_ magic, I can feel it now.” Opening her eyes, she frowned at them both. “You have put a considerable amount of yourselves into this room,” she said. “I would like to check you both over. You could have been harmed.”

“We’re fine,” Harry said.

“We shall let Madam Pomfrey be the judge of that!” She shook her head, looking weary for a moment. “Of all the things I had to worry about this year, I had not considered this possibility.”

Harry looked at the floor.

“Oh come along, gentlemen, I’m not going to be deducting points!”

“We don’t get points in eighth year,” Draco said.

“I see Mr Potter has rubbed off on you, Mr Malfoy. He always was the cheekier of the two of you.”

“Professor?”

“Don’t you ‘Professor’ me, Harry,” McGonagall said, slipping into using his given name. “I was your head of House for a long time.”

“Yes, Professor.”

She chuckled, and looked around her once more. “Filius is going to have kittens when he sees this!” She looked around as though calculating what would need to be done. “I don’t suppose you two would listen to me if I told you not to enter this room again until it had been checked?” She asked. “Although I suspect the room itself would hinder any attempt to bar you from it.”

“If you don’t mind, Professor,” Harry said, “We’ve grown rather attached to it. We only have a short time left here. We…” his voice began to crack.

“I think what Harry’s trying to say is that we’d like to be able to keep using the room. It is a very good space for practising our magic.”

Something about the way McGonagall was looking at them - the twinkle in her eye, perhaps - told Harry that she had an inkling of what else they used the room for. He hadn’t so much as brushed against Draco since they’d walked in, but maybe their mingled magic, infused into the Room, was telling her its own story.

She shook her head again. “In a few weeks you will no longer be my concern.” She paused. “For the rest of term, should the room be judged safe, and you unharmed, then I think you can keep using it. And once you are no longer students here, if you want to visit this space maybe we can arrange something.” She sighed. “Although for Merlin’s sake, no more sneaking around. If you want to return here after you leave Hogwarts, you are to ask my permission, understood?”

They both nodded.

As they left, Harry felt something in the room shift. He turned around, and saw Draco do the same. The lights were perhaps a little dimmer, but the room looked unchanged. It felt though, like a caress, or perhaps a farewell. It was no longer theirs alone.

***

Harry never thought he’d enjoy revising, but between Draco and Hermione he had so many opportunities, he was actually beginning to feel confident about doing his NEWTs.

Sitting in one of the armchairs by the common room window, he watched Draco shuffling through a stack of cards, his lips moving as he read their contents aloud. He could think about other uses for that mouth, and shifted in his chair. They might not have the Room to use in the same way anymore - they kept finding Professors in it, who only wanted to ask them questions about their magic and how they’d repaired the room - but there were other options. His lips curled into a private smile at the thought of their plans for later. They never had been back to the Prefects’ bathroom, although he had returned to it in his imagination, many times. Even if Myrtle turned up, Harry didn’t think it would stop him.

His thoughts about bubbles were interrupted by Millie arriving, out of breath, in the common room.

“Did you run all the way here?” Harry said.

She nodded, and held a hand to her side while she got her breath back.

“I came straight from the Headmistress,” Millie said. “Where’s Hermione? I want to show her these.”

She pulled out a small velvet bag from her pocket, and spilled its contents on the nearest table.

Hermione looked up from where she was ensconced, with Daphne, Padma, and a huge pile of books. “Did she say yes, then?”

Harry had no idea what they were talking about.

“There you are. Come and have a look.”

Hermione hopped up out of her chair, followed by Padma and Daphne, and along with Harry they all came to see what Millie had brought.

Shiny purple enamelled badges were spread across the table. Harry picked one up; they were crest-shaped, like a Prefect’s badge, but instead bore the image of the Hogwarts crest.

“What are they?” Daphne asked.

“Do you remember us talking about how to encourage more friendship between the Houses, and how to combat bullying?” Millie said.

They nodded.

“Well, these are Hogwarts friendship ambassador badges. Each year students from across the Houses will be selected to wear them. Their job will be to be, well, friendly.”

“Look out for younger years, encourage cross-House friendships,” Hermione added.

“They are going to get training, too,” Millie said. “The idea is, you see someone wearing this badge, you know they are a safe person to talk to.” She turned to Hermione. “Have you told him the other bit, yet?”

Hermione shook her head. “Not yet. This bit was my idea: the eighth-year rooms are going be turned into a kind of social club, with each year group meeting on a set day of the week. I’ve been talking to Professor McGonagall about some of the Muggle activities that might be good to offer, alongside wizarding ones. Music, painting, games. That sort of thing.”

Harry thought it over. “It all sounds good.”

Maybe if there’d been someone older to intervene, things would have been better for Draco long before the war. Harry liked to think so.

***

After the last exam was over, the seventh and eighth years flocked to the Room of Requirement. McGonagall had cleared it as safe, but the Room did not reveal itself to all who searched it out. Unlike before, it did not change its physical shape; the white stone trees remained each time it was opened. The contents however, changed depending on who was using it, and why.

For this occasion, the end of exams, chairs, tables, sofas and armchairs were dotted around the sides of the room, but the centre was left clear.

“It’s like our baby has grown up,” Harry said.

“You don’t half talk some rubbish,” Draco said, then planted a light kiss on Harry’s cheek.

As much as Harry wanted to kiss Draco, back, he was uncertain about doing it in front of all the others. Ron and Hermione knew, of course, and the rest of Harry’s friends he’d guessed he would tell eventually. It had been peaceful so far with very few people knowing, and he’d enjoyed having some privacy. Harry dreaded to think what it would be like when and if the press found out about both his sexuality and the person he wanted to be with.

The Room, though, seemed to have other ideas. Harry wasn’t sure if the others saw the wave of rainbow-tinged light that swelled up and swept around the room, but when it reached Draco and him, Harry was swept up in it, straight into Draco’s arms and a big, unambiguous kiss. For the first time Harry had an inkling what McGonagall had felt when she’d come into the transformed Room for the first time: every bit of the desire Harry had felt, every warm look, every touch Draco had given him, was wrapped around him.

The others fell silent, until somebody whooped. The light seemed to swirl around the room for a moment more, then disappear up into the arched ceiling.

In the assembled students, Harry noticed other pairs kissing. Anthony and Lisa were no surprise, but Blaise and Ginny were. Harry smiled at them: Ginny was glowing and Blaise looked very pleased with himself.

Lavender and Parvati were wrapped in each others’ arms, the sight as natural and familiar as ever. Yet when they broke apart, both looked surprised.

Parvati reached up and stroked the side of Lavender’s face, and smiled, then Lavender pulled her in for another kiss.

“Haven’t they been together all year?” Draco said.

“Maybe not?” Harry wasn’t sure. The radiant smiles on both their faces suggested that this was something new.

Happy chatter and cheering broke out across the room, and Harry wondered if this would have been possible without the Room’s encouragement. The newly kissing couples seemed to have taken some of the attention from them, but Harry was still aware that people were staring at the two of them, and talking.

Inevitably, it was Susan who thrust her way forward to confront them.

“I see now why you’ve been taking Malfoy’s side, Harry,” she said. “It’s more than friends, isn’t it?”

“Susan.”

Draco squeezed Harry’s hand, but Harry felt it ought to be him reassuring Draco, not the other way around.

“I want you to know,” Draco said, “that I know that I did many harmful things in the past. I was a bully, and cruel, and filled with a prejudice I never stopped to question. And I am deeply and genuinely sorry, for how I was, and for everything I was a part of.”

“I can’t see how you can have changed so completely,” Susan said.

Draco sighed. “What if I told you that how I am now is more me than I ever was before? I spent so long being terrified—”

She snorted. “What do you know of being scared?”

“Voldemort lived in my house,” Draco said, and Harry felt him shake beside him. “He threatened to hurt my mother if I didn’t help him.”

“He did?” Susan was quiet. “I… I didn’t know that. Did… did he threaten you, too?”

Harry remembered Narcissa asking if Draco was safe… all that year he’d been so caught up in his quest for the Horcruxes, he’d never considered what threats had been made against Draco himself, and a cold feeling clenched at his insides. He held onto Draco’s hand tighter.

“I was scared for myself and my mother every day. I… I was very unhappy,” Draco said. “I saw things I’ll never be able to unsee. But I do know that still doesn’t make what I did OK.”

“You’re right, it wasn’t,” she said, her anger catching up with her again. “You should have gone to Azkaban, and I don’t understand how you’ve been walking around free. And apparently making out with Harry.”

“He saved me, you know,” Harry said. “When the Snatchers caught us. He lied to protect me.”

“I was so scared,” Draco said, turning to him. “But I knew somehow, that you were my only chance to end it all.”

Susan was watching them closely. Anger and hurt were still visible on her face, but something new was showing, too.

“You two really have found something together, haven’t you?” she said. “I don’t understand.”

“We fixed this room together,” Harry said. “Everything you see came out of us learning to find peace between us.”

She looked around. “The castle wants you here,” she said, turning to Draco.

“I tried to show it how sorry I am,” he said. “I wish I could have done the same for you.”

“Well I don’t fancy any branches of my own but… I trust Harry. And the castle. I…” She trailed off, and tears began to well up in her eyes.

“Susan,” Harry said, and went to hug her. “I am so sorry for everyone you’ve lost. It hurts and it’s lonely, I know.” He had his own dead, the people he would always miss, the people who should never have gone.

She stayed in the hug for a moment, then stepped back. “I… I’m still not entirely OK with any of this,” Susan said, “but I’ll think about it. I… I’ll give you some space. And I think I need my own, too.”

Harry nodded.

She walked off, straight to where Hannah, Neville and Luna were sitting. Harry was grateful to see them look after her, but also sad that he couldn’t do it himself. She’d never accept it fully from him, because of his tie to Draco.

Draco let out a long, shuddering breath. “I’ve been dreading that,” he said. “But expecting it, too.”

“The Room wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you,” Harry said, strangely confident of the truth of his words as he said them.

Draco looked around him. “I know.” He was quiet a moment. “She has a point, you know.”

“You don’t deserve to be in Azkaban. We… we were all too young for any of this. And maybe now we have a chance to live our lives in a better way. No more sides, no more fighting.

“I hope so.”

The year had been a long one, and as much as it had been a comfort to be back at Hogwarts, Harry realised he was ready for a fresh start. He would never have imagined it would be with Draco by his side, but now it was all he wanted.

Looking around the Room, he caught Ginny’s eye. She was sitting with Blaise, who had a hand resting lightly on her arm. She smiled at Harry, and they nodded at each other. It was, he realised, the final farewell to whatever they’d had between them.

***

After the party was over, Harry and Draco began tidying up, until they were the last left. Once as they were alone, they slowed, then sat on their sofa looking at the half-tidied room.

“Bet the Room or the house-elves could do that,” Draco said.

“Shh,” Harry said. “Don’t let Hermione hear you say that.”

“She’s not here,” Draco said. He looked around the room. “I guess this is goodbye,” he said.

“There’s only one thing left that I want to do in here,” Harry said. He’d been thinking about this for a while now, and something in him knew that this was the right place and time, that it would be possible in the Room.

“Yes?”

“Not that.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Soon enough we’ll have a house to ourselves. Then you can do me anywhere.”

“Anywhere?”

“On the stairs, in the attic, I don’t mind.”

“I’ll take that as a challenge then,” Draco said. “Everywhere.”

“Will you stop trying to distract me?”

“No,” Draco said, and Harry’s heart surged with joy that they had this, that they’d found this happiness together. Neither had drunk during the party - however much Harry might have joked about it, the room did feel like their baby and they’d both felt responsible for looking after it. And yet in that moment, Harry felt a little drunk on happiness. One look at Draco’s eyes told him that it was the same for him, too.

“I was thinking,” Harry said, “That the one thing we didn’t do in this room was complete our Animagus transformations. I think… I think we both could. And if we do it while we’re still at school, I think McGonagall will arrange for us to be registered. Both of us.”

Harry had been thinking about this: once they left the school, it would be harder to find people willing to trust Draco.

No one else in their class had been able to perfect the transformation, but here, in the Room, it felt possible.

“You first, Harry,” Draco said. “Go on.”

Harry closed his eyes and focused on his sense of himself, on that inner space that felt connected to the ground. This time he let that space expand, let it connect to the ground with four feet. The transformation, when it came, was nothing like the animal-head one had been. There was no pain; although he felt his body stretch and change, it was more like water pouring into a vessel, taking on its shape. He felt his strong muscles, ready to move, and the weight of antlers on his head.

When Harry opened his eyes, he saw Draco, watching him. The room looked different though. He shook his head, and began to walk. He could feel the muscle and sinew move with him; he felt free, in a way he had never known before. Looking around with a deer’s eyes: he could see currents of magic weaving in and out of the branches above.

Draco then moved, drawing Harry’s attention. He closed his eyes, and Harry watched as a peaceful look descended on his face. Then Draco’s body began to shrink, and feathers grew up from skin and clothes alike. It only took a moment, and then Draco as a snowy owl swooped up, so like Hedwig Harry’s heart ached, and flew around the room.

He came to settle on Harry’s antlers. It was strange to be connected in this way, to feel this weight on his head and neck and know it was Draco. After a moment, Harry dipped his head, and Draco flew off and landed instead on one of the stone branches.

Colours danced in and out of the stone branches, and around Draco. After watching for a moment, Harry closed his eyes, and felt his way back into his sense of himself. He felt into his hair and his fingers, into his desire for Draco, into his relief that the exams were over and his sadness that he had to leave Hogwarts.

When he looked up at the ceiling again, it was all white and shadows.

Draco flew once more around the Room, and then he too returned to his human form.

“We did it,” Harry said. “We actually did it!”

“Do you think,” Draco said, “that we would have been able to do it without the Room?”

Harry thought about it, and looked around him. “Did you see it, the magic?”

“Like a river of colour,” Draco said, “Around the branches.”

“If what McGonagall said was right, a lot of that was our magic. Yours and mine. The Room helped us,” he said. He thought of how much easier some of the magic had been to perfect in it, and of that wave of magic that had brought all the attractions in the group to the surface. “But we helped the Room too.”

“I like the idea that a part of Hogwarts will always be ours.”

“Not ours: us.”

“Us.”

They walked around the room one final time, clearing as they went. It seemed important to touch their hand prints one last time.

“Maybe we needed this time to heal, too,” Harry said. “Thank you.” He touched the print on the back of the door, and then Draco laid his hand beside his.

“Thank you,” Draco said.

They left the Room together.

### Epilogue - December, 1999

George’s shop was lit up with thousands of tiny lights, little sparks that quivered in lines along the shelves, and around each window pane. The windows were already steamed up, the shop full to capacity.

Harry unwound his scarf. He had forgotten how cold Scotland in winter could be, and snow lay thick on the ground outside. Beside him, Draco was still stiffly buttoned up in his long black coat, looking like a Muggle version of Snape.

“Relax,” said Harry, picking up a cup of mulled cider for them both.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Draco muttered back, “everyone loves you. They hate me.”

“Not everyone hates you,” Harry said. “I don’t.”

“I know you don't, you sappy fool,” Draco said.

They’d been late to the opening because Harry had been distracted by all those buttons, and had to show Draco just how much he appreciated them and cared about him, up against the back of the front door. Again. Draco had kept his promise about _everywhere_ in the house, and poor Kreacher walked into rooms with his hands over his eyes now.

On first entering the shop it was impossible to know where to look first; it made the Diagon Alley shop look positively bland in comparison. About thirty brooms, toy and real, adorned the walls, and any shelves not containing the Weasley merchandise were filled with lines of shivering penguins in different sizes. Evergreen branches and winter roses snaked down from the ceiling, like some strange winter jungle. George’s mystery person had turned out to be a witch called Veronica who worked in Dervish and Banges in Hogsmeade. Harry hadn’t spent much time with her before, but remembered that she loved penguins. Maybe things were more serious than Harry had thought if her influence was so visible in the shop.

“Harry!” George was with Ginny, and Veronica. He let go of Veronica - causing her little penguin earrings to sway from side to side - and pulled Harry into a quick hug. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

Harry smiled as George wrapped his arm around Veronica again. She and George looked good together. Seeing how she looked at George with such fondness, Harry felt a warm glow at his friend’s happiness.

“This shop is bonkers,” Harry said, raising his voice slightly to be heard above the din of so many people in a small space.

“Thank you!” George grinned. “I wasn’t sure you’d see it before you set off on your adventures.”

“We’re not leaving until after Christmas,” Harry said. “Your mum would kill me.”

George glanced over at Draco. “You’re coming then,” he said. “Both of you?”

“Yes,” Ginny said. “I told mum it wasn’t fair if you could bring Veronica, and I could bring Blaise, but Harry couldn’t bring Draco.”

Draco looked rather as though he wanted to sink into the floor, but Harry kept a tight grip on his hand.

“I’ve been told that your mum’s cooking is better than Harry’s,” Draco said. “I’d like to see if it’s true.”

“True or not,” George said, “If you tell her it is she’ll be happy.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Draco said. He took a breath, and Harry could see how hard he was trying to be sociable. “Your shop is very welcoming,” Draco said. “You’ve put a lot of thought into it. I like it.”

“Thank you,” George said, but then someone attracted his attention, and he turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” he called over his shoulder. Harry suspected that was the most conversation they would manage to have with him, as everyone wanted a moment with George.

George was making a huge lunch for them all, including Blaise and Ginny. Harry had no idea how they’d all fit around the table, but it was to all intents and purposes Draco’s first Weasley lunch. It would be good practice for Christmas, at any rate.

When the shop got too hot and crowded, Harry and Draco left to walk through Hogsmeade. They were heading to Hogwarts for the night, and were looking forward to returning to the Room. When McGonagall - Minerva, she insisted they call her - had invited them to stay, they had jumped at the chance.

“One last visit,” Harry said, “before we go away.”

“It will be good to go back,” Draco said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Ron and Hermione, too,” Harry said. “They’re staying with George, and will still be here tomorrow. I think Hermione said something about Millie coming, too.”

“Those two are frightening,” Draco said. “I think between them they are going to end up taking on the Wizengamot - no; the whole Ministry.”

“Good,” said Harry, decisively. Of all the relationships that had been forged in the eighth year, this was one of the most surprising. Millie and Hermione, both going into wizarding law together, were indeed a force to be reckoned with.

They stopped in the empty street: the shops, apart from George’s, were all closed now, and most sensible people were inside in the warmth.

Harry wrapped his arms around Draco, and kissed him under one of the street lights. Draco tasted like wood, mulled cider, and home. He’d never imagined a life like this, with the promise of new horizons, and the familiar warmth of Draco by his side.

When they got to the edge of the village, they transformed into their Animagus forms. Over snow and moonlight, they ran and flew to the Castle, free in the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥
> 
> This story is part of HD Erised, an on-going anonymous fest. The author will be revealed January 10th.


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